Gary Hamrick - Wisdom for the Crossroads (01/22/2026)
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In Jeremiah 6:16, the Lord urges His people—and us today—at life’s crossroads to pause, seek the timeless good way of His Word, and walk in it obediently, promising that this path alone brings true rest for our souls. Yet Judah tragically refused, choosing their own way instead.
Opening Prayer and Context
So last week we were in chapter 6 of Jeremiah, and some of you might be thinking, «We haven’t gone very far; we’re still here in chapter 6.» That is true. That’s because I just kept sensing this nudging from the Lord during the week about a particular verse here in Jeremiah 6, verse 16.
So if I can draw your attention to Jeremiah 6:16, that’s what I will read this morning, and then we’ll pray together. «This is what the Lord says: Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.»
Let’s pause there and pray. Father in heaven, we’re grateful to have the opportunity once again to gather here in Your house, to open up our Bibles, to worship You, to give thanks for who You are. And we just want to celebrate You. We want to magnify You and glorify You. And I pray, Lord, that all the other cares of this world now will just kind of fade away as we just focus on You and as we worship You, Lord, and open up Your Word. And we pray that this verse would speak to our hearts today in a fresh and meaningful way.
We love You and we thank You for Your grace in our lives. We thank You for the privilege of living in the United States of America. We don’t want to take these freedoms that we enjoy for granted. Thank You that we can even be gathering here—the freedom of assembly, the freedom of worship. And we know many people have paid dearly for the freedoms that we enjoy.
So, Lord, I pray that we would be mindful, especially this Tuesday, to not only pray for our elected leaders but to be a part of the process by exercising our vote—that as Christians we can let our voices be heard, the values and the standards of Your Word that we hold so near and dear to our hearts. May we exercise that right and that privilege by being a part of voting this Tuesday.
And we thank You, Lord, for Your blessings and for Your many kindnesses that You’ve shown us as a nation. And we love You and we give You thanks and praise and glory and honor. It’s in Jesus' name we pray, and everybody said amen.
What to Do at a Crossroads
Well, as we look here this morning at Jeremiah 6:16, I want to talk to you today about what to do when you’re at a crossroads. All of us will face moments in life when critical decisions must be made—times when different roads intersect and you need to figure out which way to go and what to do.
Making the right decision when you’re at a crossroads can mean the kind of rest for your souls that this verse speaks about. On the other hand, making wrong decisions when you’re at a crossroads in life can have either short-term or long-term ramifications, depending on the seriousness of the matter at hand. So it’s important that we make decisions wisely and seek the wisdom of the Lord when we’re at a crossroads in our life.
Historical Background: Judah at the Crossroads
Now, before I deal with that in a practical sense from Jeremiah 6:16, I first want to give us the historical background so we have the context and the perspective of what Jeremiah is writing about here. The people of Judah are at a crossroads. That’s why he uses that word here in verse 16. It’s figurative language that means that they’re at a critical point of decision, the result of which will have far-reaching implications.
The choice before them is whether they turn from their idolatry and rebellion against God or whether they stay the course and suffer the consequences for it. So God lays out some wisdom for them here in Jeremiah 6:16, urging them to make the right decision, giving them counsel from above, and telling them that if they would make the right decision and choose the right path, they will have rest for their souls.
But unfortunately, the part of verse 16 I didn’t read says that the people said in response, «We will not walk in it.» Again, at the end of the verse, when God says to them, «Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls”—the end of the verse says, „But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'“ They outright refused to walk in the wisdom and counsel of God that they might have rest for their souls.
Furthermore, verse 17—if you still have your Bibles open—verse 17 says, „I appointed watchmen over you and said, 'Listen to the sound of the trumpet.'“ In other words, God is referring to the prophets as watchmen. God sent prophets to warn the people, to sound the alarm. But again, verse 17 at the end says, „But you said, 'We will not listen.'“
So not only does God give them wisdom for how to choose the right path, He gives them warnings in advance about what’s going to happen if they don’t choose the right path. But every time the people were like, „Well, thanks anyway, but we’re not gonna walk the path, and we’re not gonna listen to the warnings.“ So they didn’t receive the wisdom of God; they didn’t heed the warning of God, and as a result they brought disaster upon themselves.
That’s what also tells us here in this chapter. Look at verse 18: „Therefore hear, O nations; observe, O witnesses, what will happen to them.“ In other words, God even broadcasts this to the nations, says, „Here’s what’s going to happen to My people because they have forsaken My wisdom and rejected the warnings I’ve given them in advance.“
Verse 19: „Hear, O earth: I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their schemes, because they have not listened to My words and have rejected My law.“
We jump further down to verse 22: „This is what the Lord says: Look, an army is coming from the land of the north; a great nation is being stirred up from the ends of the earth. They are armed with bow and spear; they are cruel and show no mercy. They sound like the roaring sea as they ride on their horses; they come like men in battle formation to attack you, O daughter of Zion.“
So we talked about this last week. Here’s the map that I used last week. The region we’re talking about here is the southern part of Israel, which is called Judah at this time in their history, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The nation that God is going to use is Babylonia to bring discipline to the people whom He loves. Babylonia is located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is today modern Iraq.
And God will bring the Babylonians along the Euphrates River down from Syria, from the north, down to attack Judah. And over a period of 20 years, from 606 BC to 586 BC, Babylonia will launch this campaign against Judah, and in 586 BC they will subdue the capital city of Jerusalem. And the people have brought this upon themselves—all because they rejected the wisdom of God and the warnings of God.
Practical Wisdom from Jeremiah 6:16
So that’s the historical background to our verse here. But now I want us to back up to verse 16, and I want us to look at it from a practical standpoint. I kind of want to rise up 30,000 feet and look at the overview of verse 16 and ask the broader question. And the broader question is this: What do you do when you are at a crossroads in your life?
All of us will from time to time be like this guy—just standing at a crossroads of life, having to make some critical decision that can impact life in big and small ways. And sometimes the choice will be clear and obvious, and other times the choice will not be as clear or obvious. And trying to make the decision and trying to discern the will of God will sometimes be painful and even paralyzing.
But I believe that contained here within verse 16 is some practical wisdom from God to help us make right decisions when we find ourselves at a crossroads so that we can find rest for our souls. How many of you could use a little more rest for your souls? Let me just see your hands. Yeah, I mean, all of us could say that, because we live in a very high-stress, high-paced area of the world. Life gets busy; life gets cluttered. Oh, that we might have a little more rest for our souls.
So one of the things that infringes most upon rest for our souls is when we’re making unwise decisions—it’s when we come to a crossroads and we’re not making a decision with the wisdom from above, and we’re rushing into things, doing things that later we will regret. And so I think it’s good for us to look at verse 16 from the practical standpoint of how can we glean some wisdom from above so that when we are standing at a crossroads in our life, we might have God’s wisdom and find rest for our souls.
So I’m gonna put verse 16 again on the screen for you. You can look at your Bibles, but I’m gonna highlight different things of this verse to just kind of show together some of the things that I think God would say to us, giving us wisdom about how to find wisdom from Him during the different crossroads of our lives.
So here’s verse 16 again: „This is what the Lord says: Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.“
1. Stand
There are four directives that God gives us here in verse 16 when we are at a crossroads, and it’s taken basically from the different verbs that you see in this verse. The first one I want to highlight is the word „stand.“ The word „stand.“ God is telling us here that when we’re at a crossroads, the first thing we need to do is stand at the crossroads.
Now let me just state the obvious—and so you can thank me later, like, „Okay, Captain Obvious, thanks for pointing this out”—but when we hear the word „stand, ” when God’s directive is „stand at the crossroads, ” please note: standing is not running; standing is not walking; standing is not sitting. Standing is being still, and it’s holding your position right where you are.
The Hebrew word here for the word „stand“ is the Hebrew word „amad, ” and „amad“ means to abide, to endure, or to remain. It has the connotation of a certain steadfastness, of an immovability. It has the idea of being unhurried. And tied together, I believe that this word itself is a warning to us about not rushing into something. Just stand there. Stand still. When you don’t know what to do, stay right where you are.
There’s never a sense when you read the Bible that Jesus is ever hurried or in a rush—ever. He is measured; He is disciplined; He is deliberate. We need to learn that for ourselves. We need to learn to be still. Sometimes we need to slow it way down and not make any rash decisions.
There are a few examples in the Bible of people who were so slow that they actually missed something that God was doing, but that’s rare. Most often in the Bible you see example after example after example of people who ran ahead of God, who got way out in front of Him, took matters into their own hands, made hasty decisions, and then hoped that God would just bless it after the fact.
You see example after example after example. A few come to mind—for example, Abraham. The whole Abraham and Sarah and Hagar debacle. Okay, you know, God appears to Abraham and says, „Abraham, I know you’re old, but it’s gonna be a greater miracle because your body is as good as dead, but yet out of you you’re gonna have a descendant and a child of the promise, and your descendants will be as numerous as the sand on the seashore, as numerous as the stars in the heavens. So just wait, because one day you and your wife Sarah—you’re gonna have a baby.“
Okay, then they’d never had babies, and now they’re up there in years. Okay, they’re drawing Social Security; their driver’s license has been taken away from them. I mean, they’re up there. And yet they’re like, „Tick tock, tick tock.“ And he looks at Sarah like, „Sarah, you know, you’re no spring chicken anymore, and we got to hurry this along. We got to help God out.“
And Sarah’s like, „You know what? You know what we ought to do? Because no baby’s happening. This has been a few years now. And so what you need to do is you need to take my maidservant Hagar, and you need to sleep with her, and maybe the child of the promise will come through Hagar.“
Now Abraham at the time is about 90, so he’s like, „Okay, sounds like a good idea to me.“ What are you doing, Abe? Don’t mess up God’s plan. That isn’t God’s plan. He said you and Sarah, your wife. But nevertheless, he rushes into it, and Ishmael is born. And that’s today what we call the Middle East conflict. I mean, you look at the history of the Jewish people and the descendants of Ishmael—you have the Middle East conflict all because a guy decided, „I’m gonna take matters into my own hands. I’m gonna help God.“ Don’t ever try to help God. God doesn’t need our help.
You look at a similar thing with Moses. You know, Moses is raised up in the court of Pharaoh, having been saved from the Nile River by Pharaoh’s daughter. So he’s raised in Pharaoh’s palace—the child of privilege. But he knows he’s a Hebrew; he knows he’s a Jew. And he sees his fellow Hebrews being mistreated as slaves in Egypt. And so he decides, „I’m gonna try to help my fellow Hebrew people by killing an Egyptian who’s brutally treating one of my Hebrew brothers.“ So he kills the Egyptian, thinking nobody can see—by the way, God sees everything, right?
Okay, then he buries the Egyptian in sand. Instead, he’s just like, „Nobody’ll ever know. Nobody’ll ever know.“ I mean, the wind blows, so the Egyptian—you know, this hand sticking up out of the ground. People like, „Hey, Moses killed this guy.“ Now Moses is on the run, and for 40 more years he’s gonna live his life on the backside of the wilderness of Midian.
Now, was he God’s deliverer for the Hebrew people? Yes, he was, and he knew he was. But he prematurely thought that if I just killed one Egyptian at a time, I’ll eventually kill them all. What are you thinking? You have to wait on God’s timing. And so he took matters into his own hands and tried to help God, and it was another mess until 40 years later God had matured him, God had prepared him, and then God could use him.
You see the same nonsense happening in the New Testament. So Judas, one of the twelve apostles, hangs himself after he betrayed Jesus. The disciples are in the upper room in the book of Acts. They’re supposed to just—the instruction Jesus gave was, „You just wait for the promise of My Father. I’ve promised you—like, just wait for the Holy Spirit. That’s all you’re supposed to do—just pray and wait.“
And they get together and like, „Anybody has some cards and some dice?“ Yeah, anybody? And so they start—you know what they decide? „We got to replace Judas. So anybody got some dice? We’re gonna roll some dice, and we’re gonna try to figure out who should be Judas’s replacement.“ God never asked them to do that. What are they doing? „We need to help God out. We need to replace Judas.“ No, God never told you to do that.
So they roll the dice—you know, like they think they’re in Vegas. They’re rolling the dice, and then they choose a guy named Matthias. We never hear about that guy ever again in all of the Bible or in church history, because it probably wasn’t God’s choice. Paul was the guy that God wanted to choose later.
You see in the book of Thessalonians—the people thought, „Well, God is gonna come soon, so we might as well quit our jobs and not work.“ And Paul has to come along and say, „Hey, listen—if a man doesn’t work, he shall not eat.“ And so they’re like, „Oh, I guess we got to work. I guess we actually got to work.“
And so we want to wait for the return of Christ, but we can’t take matters into our own hands. Yeah, work while you wait. Okay?
So here’s the situation: many of us tend to just rush ahead of God and think that we’re doing God a favor, when in reality God just wants us to stand still. Just stand. Don’t run; don’t walk—stand is the first directive here. Be still. Stand.
You want to get wisdom from above? God’s not gonna chase you down. God wants you to stand there and be still in His presence. What did David say in Psalm 37:7? „Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.“ In Psalm 46:10, „Be still, and know that I am God.“
Standing still is not inaction. We sometimes think, „If I’m not doing something, I’m not making progress.“ Standing still is not inaction—not for the Christian. Standing still is a plan of action, because you’re waiting on the Lord for the next step. Don’t be afraid just to stand still and wait.
We need to learn the art and the discipline of standing still and just waiting on the Lord. Isaiah said in Isaiah 64:4, „For since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides You, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.“
But see, we have a hard time waiting and standing still because our culture has kind of conditioned us that everything is supposed to happen at rapid fire. And so if we don’t get things that way—we want it now—something’s wrong. And so we’re not even conditioned anymore how to stand still.
McDonald’s Corporation did a study three years ago because they were hearing complaints from people that the drive-through was taking too long. So three years ago the McDonald’s Corporation did a study in South Florida based on this complaint. Okay, now what they discovered was that the average wait at the drive-through McDonald’s—from the time that you gave your order in the box to the time you got your food and drove off—average wait before this study: three minutes and nine and a half seconds.
Is that like something to complain about? How quickly do you need a heart attack? You know, „I really need some grease in less than three minutes because I really want to raise my cholesterol.“ And by the way, I love McDonald’s—I’m not bashing McDonald’s, friends. Listen, if you’re gonna go to heaven, just go happy that way with a Happy Meal. That’s my motto.
But anyway, so they’re like, „Oh, this is ridiculous—three minutes and nine and a half seconds. We can’t make people wait this long.“ So they commissioned a study because here’s their goal: to this day McDonald’s Corporation has a goal—from the time you give your order in the box till you drive off with your food—60 seconds. That’s their goal. Because if it’s longer than that, people like, „Um, I can’t believe this. I’m getting out of line.“ And that’s what people do—60 seconds.
Now listen, I say this with all sincerity: I pity this generation because this generation has not learned what it means to wait. This generation—and so here’s how it translates: you don’t learn how to wait now in life, so you don’t know how to wait on God.
So I’m thankful that, you know, in the days I was growing up, you know, we had to learn to wait. We had to wait for stuff—just had to wait. And it was normal, so we didn’t know any different. We just had to actually wait. Okay?
So how many of you remember that, yeah—in order to take a picture, you had to actually load a camera with film? I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but that’s what you had to do. Today you’re just like, „Oh, selfie—oh, ” and print it in like 30 seconds, you know, wirelessly to your printer.
But back in the day you actually had this little device called a camera. You had to open the back of the camera; you had to go to your local drug store and buy spools of film that were usually like 24 pictures or 36 pictures at a time. And then you had to load the back of your camera—drop that film in, and then you had to pull that film all the way over to the other side, and then you had to loop it. And sometimes it was tricky—wouldn’t always catch the first time. You had to reel it open over and over again.
And then why do they—you don’t want to wind it too much, because if you wind it too much now you’re gonna start to expose the film. So you just wind it a little bit, shut the lid, hope that it took. And then you actually would take a picture and not know if it worked. „I hope that worked.“ How many of you got film developed that had a finger across the lens? How many of you ever said yeah? Because you didn’t even know that your finger was across the lens.
And then if you’re taking the picture at nighttime, you had a little cube—a little odd flash, you know, flashbulb cube that had four sides to it. So you had to put it—you know, put it down on top of your camera. It was only good for four pictures. And then sometimes you’d load it and accidentally press the button, and off it would go in your face—and to remove the thing, it looks like third-degree burns. It was like terrible.
And then here’s what typically happened: you take pictures like at Christmastime—you take like 12 or 15, but you’re not using the whole 36. And so guess what happens? It would just sit on your shelf until like summer vacation. And then you pick it back up, take some summer vacation pictures. And then next Christmas you’d still have some room on the film, so you take some more pictures.
And then when it was all done, you have to carefully rewind the whole thing, take the spool out, go to your drugstore, drop it in an envelope—that the sticky thing never worked, so you’re dropping it, hoping, „I hope these precious pictures come back to me.“ And then you have like three years of Christmas on it—and it’s amazing, and fingers all through it, overexposure and double exposure. Oh, those were the good old days.
But we had to learn to wait for those things. You’d wait years for pictures. People would die before their pictures had been developed. But at least you learned how to wait. And now today people don’t really know how to wait. So they’re like, „God, I can’t believe You don’t work as fast as the drive-thru at McDonald’s. What is wrong with You?“
And so we don’t want to be still; we don’t want to stand still. But often God will speak to us if we stand still long enough for us to hear Him.
2. Look
Well, let’s not wait any longer. Let’s move on to point number two. And I may highlight the word „look.“ The word „look.“ He says, „Stand at the crossroads and look.“
Now the Hebrew word for „look“ literally means „consider.“ Sometimes we’re so eager to see what God will do that we don’t stop to consider what He is doing, and thus we miss God’s direction for today.
Look around, men—look around you. Look around you in your life and notice what God is up to in your present. Don’t always be thinking forward, because God speaks in the now, in everyday simple ways.
You know, I get it—you know, as Christians in particular, we want to see God work in supernatural ways, because when God works in supernatural ways, then it’s just like this amazing thing, and it’s wonderful to behold. But don’t discount the many ways that God works through the natural. God is a supernatural God, but sometimes we discount the ways that He works in the natural and we think, „Well, that can’t be direction for me because, you know, it didn’t happen by way of an angel who came and spoke to me.“ Okay, stop that. Stop.
I mean, just look for the ways that God is doing what He does in the natural and see what He’s doing in the present. You know, there’s a story in Acts chapter 16—you don’t need to turn there—but in Acts chapter 16, in verse 6, it talks about how Paul and his companions were traveling through the region of Phrygia and Galatia—this is in Asia Minor; on a map it’ll be in Turkey today.
And when he comes to Galatia, it says there in Acts 16:6 that the Holy Spirit kept them from moving on into the rest of Asia—into the rest of Asia Minor. Now we don’t know why; it just says that, and it just kind of drops it on us: the Holy Spirit prevented us, kept us from moving on into the rest of Asia Minor.
Now why would that be? Why would the Holy Spirit prevent them from moving forward? Because the purpose was that they wanted to share the gospel. Why would the Holy Spirit say, „No, you’re not going to move any further“? So it seems a mystery to us until you read Paul’s letter to the Galatians. In Galatians chapter 4, verse 13, where he says this: „You know that it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you.“
Interesting. In Paul’s missionary journey through Phrygia and Galatia, Paul thought that Galatia was just a pit stop on the way to better things in Asia Minor. But Galatia was not a pit stop with God. And what God determined was that in order to sideline Paul, to redirect his steps—I know this is challenging, especially for some Christians who think that Christians or people should never get sick—listen to me on this: God actually used an illness in the life of Paul to sideline him in Galatia so that the people of Galatia could hear the gospel.
God uses very practical, everyday things to direct our steps. Terry and I have been married now for 31 and a half years, and we’ve spent our entire married life here in Loudoun County. But 28 years ago, when I was a youth pastor, I was offered a job at a church in Indianapolis. And Terry and I went, and I candidated, and I was offered the job.
And as we prayed about it—and I’m going to give you this as an example in our lives of how God uses present, everyday things, but this may not be the way that God speaks to you, okay? So I want to preface my remarks—so as we’re praying through this decision—this is 28 years ago—we had just had Tyler, our first child, who also was the first grandchild for both sets of our parents, and both sets of our parents lived here locally.
And as part of us weighing and praying, you know, what God wanted us to do for us—okay, we decided to stay put in Loudoun County and not move to Indianapolis because our first child and the first grandchild for both sets of our parents—we wanted to be near family.
And so God used that in the decision to remain here. Later that same year, 18 charter members of a new startup church that would later be called Cornerstone Chapel asked me to be the first pastor of the church. And here we are 27 years later, and to God be the glory for what He’s done.
But my point is, you know, we didn’t wait for some supernatural sign and wonder to direct us at the crossroads of a career decision. God used it to shape our family’s future and the future of this ministry because a baby was born. And for us at least—may not apply to everybody, obviously—we felt like it was important to stay put, and God used that to help us navigate the crossroads of our lives.
So the next time that something happens that can either be good or that you might think as an inconvenience, ask this question: What is God doing in that? The next time you miss your flight or get fired from your job or get hired for a particular data school—or you do get accepted at that school—or somebody breaks up with you—whatever the case might be—look at the situation for what it is in the present and ask how it pertains to His wisdom for your life.
3. Ask
Number three—I’m gonna move on here—but the word „ask“ appears twice in this verse: „Ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it.“
Now the ancient paths and the good way referenced here in this verse refer to the Torah—meaning the law of God. God is saying you need to seek Me and inquire of Me through My Word. The reliable, timeless truth of Scripture is always a dependable source of guidance and wisdom and inspiration.
We must be people who are reading our Bibles and are searching the Scriptures to find everyday practical wisdom and advice from above. When you are at a crossroads—please hear me on this—when you are at a crossroads, do not rely on your feelings; do not trust your emotions; and never make a decision when you’re down or angry—ever. People will live to regret those kinds of decisions.
When you’re at a crossroads—and say it again—never rely on your feelings; never trust your emotions; and never make a decision when you’re down or angry. Turn to the Bible instead as a reliable, never-failing source of truth and guidance.
„Ask for the ancient paths”—ask for the reliable truth that has been tested by time and survived the scrutiny of the skeptics over the generations. God’s Word is true, and God’s Word will speak to you and me in either direct ways or indirect ways.
I tell people all the time: you need wisdom—look, all the Bible is good wisdom, but look particularly at the wisdom literature of the Bible. Read Proverbs. Look at Proverbs—just meditate on Proverbs, getting guidance from God through the wisdom of Proverbs. Read it; devour it; study it; meditate on it. God will speak to you through His Word directly.
You know, some things you have questions about that there are clear verses about. You know, for example, „Should I sue my neighbor who’s a Christian?“ You know, for this, whatever it is—okay, 1 Corinthians 6: as Christians, we shouldn’t sue Christians. There’s a Bible verse for that. „Should I pay my taxes? I don’t really like how much taxes I have to pay.“ Yeah, Romans 13 says pay your taxes; be a good citizen. There are some clear verses about some things.
But then there are also some situations in life where God’s Word will speak to you in indirect ways. Now I’m gonna give you an example, but again, sometimes these are unique things that God speaks uniquely to people through His Word. So with that said, please also just prayerfully consider whenever you read Scripture before making a rash decision. Labor before the Lord and seek Him.
But I’m gonna give you an example of a friend of mine who was a pastor at a church in San Diego, California, many years ago. He has since gone on to be with the Lord. But he had the opportunity to move here to the East Coast and to take over a ministry that his father had founded years ago and was now headquartered in Bath County, Virginia—down in a little tiny town called Hot Springs, Virginia. (Wait—actually, it was Headwaters, but the town is known as Hot Springs area.)
And so my friend Roger was just really praying through this. And living in San Diego—you know, San Diego’s sunny Southern California—you know, he’s like, „Should I move to some place I’ve never even been, never even heard of—Headwaters, Virginia—to take over this ministry that my dad had founded years earlier?“
And he was reading through his Bible and just praying, and he actually came to a passage in the book of Jeremiah. It’s Jeremiah chapter 9, verse 1. This is what it says: „Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people. Oh, that my head were a spring of water…“
And he’s praying, „Should I move to Headwaters?“ That was his prayer. And he comes to this verse, and God spoke to him very clearly and uniquely through a passage like that. And God can do that.
So we have to be good students of God’s Word, because the ancient paths are not out of date—some antiquated, behind-the-times fables. The Word of God is counsel from God, the wisdom of heaven that has been given unto us for our wisdom and for our benefit when we are at a crossroads in life.
And we feel stuck and confused because we’ve reached a point basically where our rational mind can no longer give us direction or answers. We need to turn to the One who can, and we need to consult the Word of God and ask the ancient paths.
Jesus said in Matthew 7:7-8, „Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.“
4. Walk
Last directive here in our text is the word „walk“: „Ask where the good way is, and walk in it.“ It’s not enough to simply ask God for wisdom; we have to walk in it. We have to do what it says in order to benefit from it. This is about obedience. This is hearing what God says and doing what God says.
You know, if we just are a reservoir full of information but we never apply it, it’ll do us no good. It’s like if a doctor gives you a prescription and you read the label and you read all the literature that comes with the medication, but you never take it—it won’t do any good.
And this is why James says in James 1:22, „Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.“ In Proverbs 28:26 it says, „He who trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe.“
Finding Rest for Your Souls
After all this—stand, look, ask, walk—God says if you do all this, then you will find rest for your souls. It is believed—Bible scholars believe—that Jesus quotes this last part of Jeremiah 6:16 about finding rest for your souls when He says in Matthew 11:28–30, „Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.“
His language there about yoke—being yoked with Him—that’s agrarian terminology. This is a farming community that He’s speaking to; they would have understood what He meant. What He’s basically saying is that if we harness ourselves to Jesus like oxen are yoked together plowing the same field, life is a whole lot easier walking with Jesus than walking alone. It’s not burdensome with Jesus; it’s not wearisome with Jesus—quite the opposite.
When we walk with Jesus, obey Jesus, follow Jesus, then we shall have rest for our souls. And when I come to a crossroads, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
May Jesus help us to always discern from above the crossroads of life. Amen.
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray together. Lord, we thank You for Your Word—the reality that all of us from time to time will face different crossroads in life. I pray, Lord, that we would make right decisions. I pray, Lord, that we would not be hasty but we would stand still, that we would wait upon You, that we would look at what You’re doing now instead of always thinking forward—what are the ways that You are orchestrating things in our lives today for Your good purposes.
I pray that we would ask—that we would regularly seek Your Word, the ancient paths, the good way—that we would walk in it so that we might find rest for our souls. There are a lot of troubled people in this world, Lord—restless people, people who lack peace. May we as Your children seek You, follow after You, so that we might have rest for our souls.
Thank You, Lord, that You’re so faithful to us. I pray right now for different people—You know who they are—they’re facing a crossroads of their own. There’s a major decision they’re trying to make; they need You, Lord. I pray that this verse today will speak to them even as they leave here today, and that You will do a powerful work in their hearts and in their lives to reveal Your wisdom from above—that they might be still to hear Your voice, to know that You are God, and to walk in Your ways.
Lord, that You would give them rest for their souls. We thank You for Your peace, Lord—Your rest, Your guidance, Your wisdom. We love You and praise You together in Jesus' name, and everybody said amen. Amen.