A man's steps are from the Lord; how then can man understand his way? Proverbs 20:24
I was once told a story in church of a man who was a poor swimmer, who fell into a lake. A passing boat pulled up beside him and offered to take him to shore, he said no God will provide. Two boys in a canoe passed him by and offered him a lift to shore, again he said no, God will provide. Finally, a man swimming past offered to tow him to shore but again he said no, God will provide. The man drowned. When he got to heaven he asked the Lord, why didn’t you save me, why did you not provide? God replied, I sent you a boat, a canoe and a man yet you wouldn’t save yourself.
What is my point in retelling this story? I believe it has many meanings and lessons
1. It is our job to see God’s presence in every aspect of our lives and choose the path that most closely aligns with his teachings. When you are drowning in this world he is not going to appear like an apparition before you whisking you away to safety but rather he will ensure there is a path to get you safely to the shore. God knows we are fallible, he knows we are weak, he knows us entirely as he made us. So if we miss his first path he will give us another, but we need to not only believe in him but also in ourselves. It is our job to get ourselves to shore, not his. He is simply the light that guides us and the warmth that dries us.
2. God requires our faith, not blind followers. It is important to look around, to pay attention not only to what is put I front of us but what is in our peripheral. It is not our place to know the path that God has laid out for us so how do you know to simply walk straight ahead? Just because you are expecting your next step to take one form doesn’t mean you become blind to all the other options around you. There was no harm in the man taking the boat, canoe or tow to shore they were just not what he believed was his path.
3. We are so good at seeing what others are not doing for us that often we forget what we need to do for ourselves. When he got to heaven he couldn’t see that he had destroyed the body God had created for him, that he had failed to follow God’s plan for him. He couldn’t see that he had done anything wrong but he had no problem seeing where God had failed him. How many times have you blamed others around you or God himself for a problem that you could have solved? How about a problem you also caused?
What we see as a misstep may be the path chosen for us by God, what we blame others for so often could have been avoided by our own actions and where we believe we are stuck is often due to our own blinders. We have the choice in life to create our own destiny but if it doesn’t align with the Lord we can fight or we can adjust but if we are apathetic to our path, we will lose our way as God expects us to participate in our own lives.
What do you take from Proverbs 20:24? Would you of chosen another story? Are these the points you took away?