One day last year, I was hunting way back in the swamp alone. On my way back to the truck I thought I could take a short cut by jumping across a two-foot-wide ditch. It turned out to be a ten-foot-wide canal with a floating grass mat in the middle. The floating vegetation was dense enough to have ferns and bushes growing on it. Anyone would have thought it was solid ground. I found I could stay afloat if I kept moving, but there was another section I had to jump. Without a firm place to jump from it was impossible. I ended up neck deep, in the canal, in a swamp, in Florida, by myself, in the middle of nowhere. In that instant, I imagined that all the toothy and venomous things that live in the swamp were zeroing in on me. I was out of the water quick, my heart was pounding, and thankfully nothing was giving chase. Solid ground had never felt so good.
Several lessons were reinforced for me that day. Principal among those was the importance of solid ground. We base all our motion on firm footing or a solid platform. That concept is used as a metaphor in the Bible. The psalmist wrote, “The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip” (Psa. 37:30-31). He wrote again in another place, “My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber” (Psa. 121:2-3). To David or any man of war, losing your footing could mean disaster. “He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm” (Psa. 40:2). God’s word is both a firm foundation and a light that illumines our path before us (Psa. 119:105). However, there is a disturbing trend that we once thought was confined to those who do not believe in God. We now know it is named among those who consider themselves to be believers and followers of God.
According to a recent study by Barna Group, 58% of Americans believe that moral absolutes are defined by the individual. What is disturbing is that includes people who identify as people of faith. We understand the dangers of moral relativism and the lack of an absolute truth. How could people who believe in God also not believe in an absolute truth? Jeremiah wrote, “I know, O LORD, that a man’s way is not in himself, nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23). Those that go so far in their reasoning have fallen into the hole which they have made (Psa. 7:15). “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes” (Isa. 5:21). We must be those who never move our feet from firm truth. We are “God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone” (Eph. 2:20).