Listen carefully?

Exodus 15:26...the Lord says "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you." Long ago God had a plan...yes yes He still does, but I'm talking about a plan for our lives, prior to "the Fall"...one that meant if we stayed on a path, a path He determined, yes I know its a narrow path....but if we'd just stayed on His path, hmmmmm. Well here this morning I quote from Exodus 15; now God has just delivered Moses and the children of Israel once and for all from Pharoah and his mighty Egyptian army...we read on in vs. 20-21 Miriam  the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang to them: "Sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea.
Moses and the children of Israel get to see first hand the provision of our God, and He promises to them, that if they just do this one simple thingy....."If you listen carefully"...."that's all!"....and its still the same today, God promises you and I the same....."if"... if we'd just listen! "Yeah but", ah there's always the "yeah buts"...its a different time, technology, culture, "i deserve this"..."it's owed me"..."I'm entitled"....as my lovely bride just told me..."the list is in-exhaustable!" And I so agree, present company included....I do it too, I'm quite certain we all do, now some may do it to more extremes than others, but the fact remains, we all do it!
So my question, to myself always is this: "how do i get back on God's original path for my life?" I recall years ago reading the book, "We've Come this Far by Faith"....first with my bride, than as a family....perhaps I've shared this in an earlier post, anywho......what faith this family had, countless stories of how they prayed and asked God about pert-near all the"stuff" in their lives, all the time....and each time we would finish reading this book, I'd always say..."I want faith like that!" Now zoom ahead roughly 11 years, God has been systematically, gradually, removing the various "crutches" from our lives...."crutches" that gave me the false security, if you will, that I actually was in some sort of control of my life...stuff like finances and such...I guess years ago when I prayed and asked God to increase my faith, to give me the kind of faith this family had, I'd always hoped God could just flip a switch and instantly increase my faith.....but that's not how God does it...Faith comes from "tests" from "trials" from "tribulation", remember??? James 1:3 says "because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." Your faith, my faith, cannot be developed, sort of like our brains, our muscles....they cannot be developed without tests, or trials, or resistance, or whatever.....that's how God does it...Faith is a gift from God.....Abraham was given this amazing gift, and it was the only thing counted "righteous" to him....and even though its a gift, He promises He will help us build it.....Faith in Him.....we must keep our eyes on Him, even during the what we feel are the most trying of trials.....Hebrews 10:38 "But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him."  "O Lord, that's it....help me no matter what the trial Lord, to not shrink back"