I live in the southwest United States. And one of the things I love about hiking in this part of the world is the use of cairns. Cairns are piles of rocks that help mark the trails, and in this rocky terrain they're often the only way to know you're on the right path. I can't count the number of times I've stood at a cairn, straining to see the next one, or taken tentative steps forward hoping to see a cairn up ahead.

For me, cairns make trail hiking in the southwest more like real life than following easy, well-worn trails in other parts of the country. Most of the time, my life is one of looking for the next marker that I'm on the right path, and trusting that future markers will be there.

I believe that in every moment, God is guiding us. Often we want to know what the "good path" will be ten years from now, but God doesn't work that way. Instead, God lays cairns for us, and it's our job to look for the next cairn, and the next one after that. If we're willing to simply do that, then we can guarantee that ten years from now we will still be walking "in the way of the good" and in "the paths of the just," as Proverbs 2:20 tells us to do.