Isaiah 55:7 “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Last year, I read an excellent thought on the differences between “ways” and “paths.” I do not have time or permission to retell it, but in short, a way is a broad, more traveled road. A way is communal, that is, it is not just one person but many people who travel on it. A path, on the other hand, is solitary by nature since there are just a few people who use it. A path is intensely personal.

Isaiah calls us to turn from our wicked ways. If our ways are wicked that means that there are others, that many people are involved in this wickedness. Our evil, sinful actions are communal and thus will in turn affect the community; as a community we need to respond.

Isaiah then goes on to speak about unrighteous thoughts. The first thing I thought of after reading this was Jesus preaching about sin and that we have sinned if we even only considered it – or thought about it (Matthew 5). Thinking is very solitary and very personal – much like a path within our mind. The mind is where sin originates for us – this is where we sin first. The singul thought then carries over into actions and our actions then affect others and that little path which we traveled in our mind joins into a large way where we travel with many others; a boulevard of wickedness so to speak.

It is the thought that makes us unrighteous and the action that makes us wicked. “There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10) There are non born who are pure and godly. We all started away from God, but we are offered hope. We have to be willing to change. We need to turn from our actions and leave them behind as we walk towards the cross. Remember that we are walking the wrong direction in the ways of wickedness. We walk contrary to the flow of humanity down this boulevard of broken dreams. We now are having to push and shove our way through the masses. This does not make us popular and people will not like us or feel charitable for us, yet we are not alone. The word “we” by very nature involves more than one person – in our walk towards Godliness and Holiness, Christ walks with us and encourages us. There are many people trying to turn and walk towards God. As we come together in our walk against the crowd and away from wickedness, we can help each other and encourage each other just as Christ encourages us in our travel towards Him. With more people the return towards Holiness becomes easier.

Just as it takes a thought to be unrighteous, it takes thought to begin and continue towards Christ. “If there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things” (Philippians 4:8). If we do not think on what is pure and good, righteous and holy, then we cannot continue forward towards God but instead we will be swept away by the crowd down the wicked way as we try to regain our footing.

Today let us begin anew a habit we should have our entire life—a habit of thinking on God and His blessings and His nature. With Christ as our focus and God in our thoughts, we will change not only ourselves, but those we come in contact with as well.

I walked today where Jesus walked,
In days of long ago.
I wandered down each path He knew,
With reverent step and slow.