Higher Ground Reflections by the Sea © Betsy Glass August 29, 2012

Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe. -Proverbs 2:11 NLT Walking the beach not so long ago I was with my family and we set out to search for sandollars. They are my favorite. Everyone was at the waters edge looking for the one that was riding the tide of seafoam before settling onto the wet sand. There would be one, two and three. Then, more. As more sandollars were found, we began to attract a crowd. I decided to leave the shallows for higher ground. To my surprise, I collected just as many as everyone else, but mine were dry and white as they sat on top of the hard sand. They had been there for days and had gone unnoticed to my delight!  This week I was been given many choices to either take the higher ground in my actions or wade ankle deep in the muck. It is a choice to not enter into discussions that you know are going to end in disagreement. It is a choice to walk away from a person that is argumentative or negative. It is a choice to guard our thoughts when it would be so much easier to gossip or mock someone. Yes, I think God puts us to the test sometimes to remind us that He is always watching us and He knows our heart. We either pass or fail this test. And if we fail, it means we must do better and that if we are truly living in God and He in us, we can make only one choice…to always take the high road…to walk the higher ground with Him. A friend told me this week that our mouth acts as a rudder. The rudder is what steers the direction of a boat. It is very small but very powerful. I thought that was such an accurate statement. There is a saying, “The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live”. So it is up to us which road we take. Temptations will chase us down to pull us back in to the old strongholds like the speed of a rushing tide. But it is the choice that we make in that split moment about how to conduct ourselves and what path we choose to walk that steers our path. God will always meet us on the higher ground.