My Steps Are Ordered by the Lord.

Walking anywhere with Theo and Jesse takes about four times longer than it should. Some of that is the little legs. But mostly it is because the two of them stop to look at everything.

One finds a stick. That is three minutes right there, turning it over, tapping it on the ground, deciding it is the best stick in the world.

A few steps later it is an ants' nest, and we all crouch down to watch them carry crumbs back and forth.

Then it is mushrooms growing out of the side of a tree, then a neighbor changing a tire on his car, then a snail, a drain, a weed pushing up through a crack in the pavement.

Between the two of them, nothing gets past unexamined.

When I am in a hurry, all of this drives me a little crazy. We have somewhere to be. Come on, keep walking.

But when I am not in a hurry, when I let myself slow all the way down to their pace, I love it. I crouch down with them. I look at the ants.

And I remember that to them, there is no such thing as a boring walk. Everything is worth stopping for.

I pray, "Lord, show me the next step," and what I usually mean is, "Lord, get me to the destination already." I want Him to speed things up. I treat the slow seasons, the waiting, the long stretch where nothing seems to be moving, as wasted time between me and wherever I am trying to arrive.

But I wonder if God walks with me the way I walk with my boys. Not rushing. Not frustrated by the pace. Stopping at things I would blow right past.

Maybe the slowness is not Him holding me back from the destination. Maybe the slowness is the destination. The setbacks I keep trying to rush through are where He teaches me. That is where I grow.

Psalm 37 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way."

Not only in where the way ends. In the way itself. In the walking. God is not impatient to get me to some finish line. He delights in the journey, in the company, in the slow unhurried steps we take together.

The stick and the ants, and the mushrooms were never interruptions that stop us from reaching our destination.

They are the destination.

And the slow seasons I keep wanting to fast-forward, the ordinary ones, the ones where I keep asking God to hurry up, those are not interruptions to my life with Him either. That is the life with Him.

So today, maybe the next step is not a bigger one or a faster one. Maybe it is just to slow down to His pace. To stop straining toward the destination long enough to notice that He is already here, walking beside me, in no hurry at all, delighting in the way.