A few months ago while on Home Assignment in Australia, I was visiting a supporting church in northern New South Wales. On my day off, I went to for a bush walk at a nearby Nightcap National Park. On the way down to the bottom I discovered a timber sign with the words, "Shortcutting causes serious erosion. Please stay on trail provided." The sign itself was not looking all that stable. A little bit further down the trail though, there was some serious erosion, where that part of the trail had slipped down the hillside. While I found it only a little difficult to navigate past that point, I wondered how someone less mobile than myself would have managed.

Already the area around the sign was showing signs of erosion. The sign itself had a bit of a lean, and just a few metres further along a section of the path had slipped down the hillside. Obviously erosion was already making its mark felt, being helped along by those who had, for the sake of their own convenience, made shortcuts down or up the hillside.

It got me thinking - what does erosion look like in human society?

Some thoughts came to mind: Children living with grandparents because their parents have seperated and neither father or mother wants them. Fathers spending the majority of their time away from home, either due to the demands of endless money-making, or because they have a second family in another location. Drinking spots and night clubs full, while places of religious worship sit empty. Honest, hard-working men put out of work because the budget that was to pay their salary was appropriated by their less than honest bosses.

While we may be tempted to think these are some of the typical evils of our modern western society, I'm actually describing the community that I'm currently living in, in Thailand. Over our time in Pak Phanang, Belinda's kitchen has often been filled with kids who need a mother - because their own is no where to be seen. Thai soapies and popular songs are full of the theme of the double-faced cassinova who is leading two or three ladies on at the same time (or vice-versa). The Buddhist temples are mostly attended regularly by older women, or on special feast days. (Some of my acquaitances can't even recite the five Buddhist precepts, while the majority of young people don't ever visit a temple.) And one of my own Thai friends worked the first two weeks of a month last year, before being told there was no money to pay him that month. Out of the millions of baht budgetted for the project he was involved in, somehow much of it "disappeared" before the end of the project's allotted time.

While freedom of choice is an important part of our human psyche, we need to realise that negative choices will have a negative impact on not just ourselves, but those who live around us and, in a small cumultive way, on our whole society. God gave us his Word to be "a lamp for our feet and a light for our path." It shows us the way we should live in order to have a full and non-destructive life. Jesus came to earth to be our ultimate example, living in a way that sets a path before our feet, if only we have the courage and strength to follow it. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and love your neighbour as yourself" is what he said.

The results of not following God's path in our lives are too clear to miss. "Shortcutting causes serious erosion. Please stay on the trail provided."  It's good advice.