Teach me your paths.
Who knows the paths of God better than himself? It only makes sense that we would ask him to teach us. We’re looking at Psalm 25:4 among other gems in the Bible today. So, join us, as we break it down, read the context, and see how the beauty of God’s Word changes our lives.
Having an Evergreen Relationship with God is a time for women and teen girls to seek the one thing that can’t be taken away from us—God’s Words—and to let it light our path, so we can be with God all the days of our lives and purposefully live our lives for him.
Psalm 25:4 says, “Teach me your paths.”
It’s a bold statement, yet a simply honest one.
The paths of God aren’t always easy and sometimes they’re hard for us to understand. But that’s from our very limited perspective. God sees it all beautifully, everything for what it is. He knows that his paths lead to him, to everything we’ll ever need, in this life and after.
If only he had sent some kind of instruction over the centuries, sent his word through various people he trusted, or even come down himself. Hopefully you caught that—he did! He has given us his trustworthy words over the centuries, he sent his word through many prophets, and he even came down as a man, Jesus, to teach us everything.
This declaration “teach me your paths” isn’t an order—it’s a humble and personal request, that we are waiting and wiling to be taught by God, to know his paths so we can come Home to him, our Teacher.
So let’s break it down:
Teach me.
We have been taught so many things throughout our lives. Things that we have realized and more things that we haven’t.
From our days as kids, we were taught by our parents the fundamental things, like how not to touch a hot stove or simple hygiene or even just how to talk—and so many many more.
From our days in grade school, we were taught the basics (as some say, the reading, writing and ‘rithmetic) and then into more complex concepts in various trades depending on how we furthered our education.
But all of that is training us in what we need to know to live in the world. But at the end of each of our lives, this world won’t matter anymore. It might’ve have been exciting to pursue a certain career or beneficial to have made the earth itself a better place, but where did it lead us? Were we focused on that the entire time or was that just extra while we followed the truth paths home to God?
We are led at the beginning of our lives, but then it’s up to us. We either seek to learn the Truth and fill our souls with what they need or we seek to learn anything but the Truth and fill our souls with temporary fluff.
So we need to seek to learn and be taught by the right teacher.
The Teacher.
When Moses was told to speak to Pharaoh, God said, “Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” (Exodus 4:12)
When God spoke through Isaiah to his people in 48:17, he said, “I am the Lord your God, who teachers you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.”
In Jeremiah, God again says, “Therefore I will teach them—this time I will teach them my power and might. Then they will know that my name is the Lord.” (Jeremiah 16:21)
And when Jesus came, that is what he did. He went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease. (Matthew 4:23). The well-known Sermon on the Mount starts with “and he began to teach them” (Matthew 5:2).
He was known and addressed as Teacher: by the teachers of the law (Matthew 8:19), by the Pharisees (Matthew 12:38), by the Sadducees (Matthew 22:23), by his disciples (Mark 4:28) and by Jesus himself (Matthew 26:18).
That is why he came. He came to teach us the truth. He told Pilate in John 18:37: “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
And even though they didn’t mean it in their hearts, the Pharisees still spoke true when they said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth” (Matthew 22:16)
So are we going to call God our Teacher with our mouths only or mean it in our hearts and show that we want to learn from him above all others?
In Luke 10, Mary didn’t let anything distract her. When Jesus came to her house, she simply sat at his feet and listened. She didn’t just hear what Jesus was saying, she was listening. She wasn’t listening from afar with her arms crossed, she sat humbly at his feet. She didn’t leave and come back when he was saying something she wanted to hear, she chose to stay and soak up what Jesus was saying. And Jesus said it would not be taken away from her.
While most of us would think it would be different if we could physically sit at Jesus’s feet and hear his voice explain the words of God, the truth is, it’s no different for us centuries later. God did everything in his power to give us a way to know him. Not only do we have the Truth, but he himself is still our Teacher today.
When Jesus was teaching on this earth, before he finished (before he died, rose from the dead and went back to God), he said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” John 16:12-15.
God is teaching us. When we read his Word, the Spirit guides us in all truth. God himself helps us understand, if our hearts are willing to listen.
He has been teaching us from the very beginning and still teaching us today.
Your paths. This is what God teaches us—how to know him, his ways and the life that is found in him.
The paths of God are beautiful, but only in Him.
This is not to be confused with what the world says, that there are many ways to God, that you just believe what you’re doing is right and follow whatever or whomever you want. That is subjective truth, people making up their own truth.
God has already made it clear when Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one come to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
We do ultimately have two choices, to follow God or not. Jesus also said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
Following God is hard. He never said it’d be easy. But he did say it’d be worth it. Far more than we can grasp. And we don’t walk it of our own strength. We lean on Him the whole time.
So the paths of God are all the beautiful ways we can live for God in the right way, in Truth. We sorely miss so much when we limit God and let others tell us following God is dull, boring and too strict.
After God explains that in Hosea 14 and then says the hopefully familiar verse, “I am an evergreen cypress, from me comes your fruit,” he says in the next verse: “Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.” Hosea 14:9
Those who sin won’t get it. They stumble in the right ways because they’re going the opposite direction.
But as it’s said in Psalm 16 and then repeated in Acts 2: “You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.”
So that was breaking it down. Now let’s look at the context:
Verse 1-2 say, “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust…”
First things first, we entrust our souls to God. As we walk along God’s paths, we don’t trust the others who will stumble in them. We trust God! Jeremiah 10:23 says, “I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.” We don’t see everything like he does. It’s like we see the few strands of a great tapestry and he sees it all, whole and beautifully woven. So we trust him to direct our steps in his paths.
Trusting God makes so much more sense than trusting in humankind.
Jesus himself didn’t entrust himself to people, especially when they were praising him. John 2 said, “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”
Verse 2-3: “…let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.”
When we hold fast to God, we won’t be ashamed. Rather, those who go against truth will be ashamed. Our enemies won’t win. It only seems that they’re wining in the moment.
Like in Luke 13: Jesus had just healed a woman on the Sabbath, a woman who had been suffering for 18 years, and the authorities chastised him saying it wasn’t right to do anything on the Sabbath. Jesus didn’t hesitate to call them hypocrites, saying they took care of their animals on the Sabbath—why couldn’t he take care of this woman, a daughter of Abraham? And it says, “As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.”
He will never let us down. Those who are wantonly treacherous, or cruelly betraying, they will be put to shame for going against what is good and right and true.
Verse 4-5: “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.”
For us to know the ways and paths of God, how to live in him, is worth everything. He is the God of our salvation! He is the only one who can save us from a life of continual hopelessness and nothingness. And because it’s worth everything, we’ll wait as long as it takes.
It’s not a frustrated and impatient waiting that we eventually throw our hands up and leave. It’s the trusting waiting, knowing that he is faithful. As it says in Psalm 130, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”
Because he has the truth! Not only that, he himself leads us in it and teaches it to us. His word is truth (John 17:17). Without the truth, we are lost. So we wait for him to guide us and to teach us.
Verse 6-7: “Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!”
If we look that again, it says, remember, remember not, and then remember.
We ask God to remember his mercy and steadfast love. We know of them from old. Even when giving the Ten Commandments, after stating the second one, he goes on to warn them against making idols and hating him, but then saying, “but showing steadfast love to thousands (or to the thousandth generation) of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:6) To those who follow his paths, there is the fullness of God’s steadfast love. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
Then David, who is writing this psalm, asks God not to remember—not to remember the sins of his youth or his sins. Psalm 51 puts it in perspective, another Psalm of David, after he committed adultery and murder: “Have mercy on me, God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…” We don’t ask him to forget so we can keep sinning, like asking him to turn a blind eye. This is a plea to help erase it all.
He is the only one against whom we’ve really sinned—every sin we’ve committed goes back to hurting him. But when we turn back and repent, God chooses not to remember our sins, in his love and his mercy. He erases us so we don’t have to lug it around like baggage. So that our sin isn’t constantly before us getting in the way of a new life. The new life in his paths, not ours.
And then remembering again. We ask God to remember us again according to his steadfast love and for the sake of His goodness. Who God is will bring us out of the darkness and it will also continue to lead us in his paths. Titus 3 says, “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration.” and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior…”
Verse 8-9: “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.”
Our God who leads us in his ways, he is good and upright. There is no one more true than him. He doesn’t just let us walk in his ways—he does actually teach us and lead us in them.
When Jesus was teaching, he ate and talked with sinners and told the Pharisees and scribes, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32) God doesn’t keep salvation a big secret—he lovingly teaches it to us. He guides us to him.
And he leads the humble in what is right, teaching them his way.
The Passover that Jesus was sacrificed, he spend the time before his death with his disciples…washing their feet. And after he had finished, he said, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” John 13:12-15.
Jesus didn’t just tell them, he showed them! Moreover, he acknowledged that they called him Teacher and Lord and said, “You’re right, for so I am.” But he didn’t use that as a powerplay. He just said that if he, their Lord and Teacher, was humble, they ought to be as well.
And the last part, the summary of it all, verse 10: “All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.”
For those of us who keep the commitment we have to God, we walk in his paths, all of which are full of his love and faithfulness.
It’s a covenant that God has been offering since the beginning. Before he gave the Ten Commandments in Exodus 19, he said, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.”
And in God’s covenant, he remains faithful. Always and no matter what.
“The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” (1 Timothy 2:11-13)
God is always true to who he is, even if none of us came back to him. His paths are forever and established. Nothing will move them, they are steadfast, rooted in the immovable and holy God.
So that was the verse in context. Now how does the beauty of this part of God’s Word change our lives:
We trust God. We follow a God who sees the full tapestry. We put our trust in our God and we will not be put to shame.
We wait for him. He is more than worth waiting for, he is everything we could ever need and want. We unashamedly wait for the God of our salvation.
We ask for him to teach us. We are willing and ready to listen to God, sitting at his feet. We ask to be led in his truth.
We remember his love and not our past sins. His steadfast love and mercy is what brings us out of darkness and what forgives us to let us lives a new life in him.
And we follow his paths as he leads us. He himself teaches us his beautiful ways in goodness, humility, love and mercy.
The thing with being taught and truly learning is that the one learning has to be willing.
At some point or another, we’ve all been taught something that we didn’t want to learn. And if we continued to not want it, it’s almost a done deal that we didn’t really learn it.
But the one who wants to learn takes the time to really understand what’s being taught, they use their energy to know it, and it’s obvious that they enjoy what they’re learning because it changes their perspective.
That’s how it should be for us. We aren’t meant to just hear what we are taught—we’re meant to learn it and since it’s life, we’re meant to let it change our lives. It’s an active thing, not passive.
So when we read the Bible to learn to walk in God’s paths, we realize that our Teacher is God. And it’s not a lecture; it’s a relationship.
Galatians 6:6 says “Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.” We are taught the word and we learn all good things. And when we learn it, we excitedly want to tell our Teacher, “I understand!” and when we don’t get it we ask our Teacher for help.
We have one Teacher and one Instructor, as Jesus tells us in Matthew 23. So when we read the words of God, we are learning directly from our Instructor and Master, our Lord. And in living the paths, we hunger to learn more from the Truth and from our God.
And so every day, with undying devotion in our eyes to our Teacher and Savior, we ask, “Teach me your paths.”
Well, that’s it for this time. I pray this week is a wonderful one as you continually seek the Truth in God’s Word, that by its light we will know the right path to follow to live as children of God- children that have an evergreen relationship with him.
Until the next one- same time, same place. See you soon!
Psalm 25:1-10
1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
2 O my God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
3 Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.
6 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!
8 Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
