I haven't read Jeremiah in a while. And now I am finding a lot of little nuggets of gold buried in here. I want to dig them all out, but they seem so small I wonder if it is worth the effort. But, then I remember, they are gold, after all.

6.16--"Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths,where the good way is, and walk in it." I like that phrase, "the ancient paths." It speaks to me of wisdom, the wisdom of age and experience. The paths of righteousness. The path of the upright man. Who can ascend to the mountain of the Lord? The upright, with clean hands and a pure heart. The voice of one crying in the desert, "Make your ways straight." Build up the highway of the Lord.
Stand. See. Ask. Stand by the ways means we have to seek out the right people. Psalm 1 tells us to avoid the wrong people. And Paul reminds us that people of bad character will corrupt us. And here, God tells us to seek the good, upright people and observe their ways. Find good role models for oursleves. So we stand by them, and we watch. We need to see and understand. The Proverbs repeatedly tell us to seek knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. As we watch someone elses life, we know what they do. Then we begin to understand why they do these things. From this understanding, we know how to apply this knowledge to our own lives, and this is wisdom. Wisdom is the ancient path established by the Lord.
Far from observing only, we also need to ask. Most understanding comes from asking. Standing and seeing gains much knowledge, and only sometimes understanding. So we ask, "Why?" And we begin to interact with those lives we are observing. (Thus the warning against bad company.) As our lives become intertwined, we follow them down the ancient paths.
Stand, see, ask, and now we walk. Don't forget the walking.