Last Friday Lovey and Nana had gone down to Abbiland (a little park I built for my granddaughter) to spend sometime swinging, sliding, rock climbing etc.
Before long I found myself wandering in that direction. Oh, I had plenty to do, but I just felt drawn to where they were. I was pretty sure what would happen upon my arrival and sure enough the all important question was quickly voiced by Lovey. "Pa, can we go to the creek?" Well, it's only ten steps from Abbiland, so what could a grandpa say? So off we went to the creek to throw some rocks and gather some water in a bucket and countless other things that just could not wait til another day!
As the play progressed, Lovey became bolder and bolder as she ferried water back and forth from one side of the low water slab to the other. (You don't know what a low water slab is? It's just THAT, a slab that lets you cross the creek during low water times!) Anyway, I was continually cautioning her, "Careful!! It's easy to lose your balance!"
As you can see from the picture above, my warnings went pretty much unheeded and sure enough on one rambunctious trip to get another bucket of water, she pitched face first right out in the creek!
I had followed her back and forth, back and forth across the slab so I would be close when the inevitable happened. So, as she landed face first in the water I was already reaching to grab her. I hauled her, spitting, sputtering and wailing out of the water and held her close and assured her she was OK. She had a little abrasion on her hand and being the "Queen of Drama" she was going to make the most of it. SO, I had to kiss her hand and Nana had to kiss her hand and we had to stop and listen to how she had fell in that "ole wet water" and got hurt! It just so happened, I had given my camera to Nana a moment before and she had started taking pictures. Thus the picture above. So, off we went to the house for dry clothes and to play at something else for a while.
I then went about some things I had to do, and this is when things REALLY started to get INTERESTING!! I was involved in the mundane task of cutting some branches back away from the drive way. They had grown out to where they would scrape along the side of my truck when going in or out the driveway. You city folk probably won't quite understand this. Trust me, It's a country thing!!
Anyway, it doesn't take a great deal of concentration to actually accomplish the task, so my mind was pretty available at the time. So God chose to use the time to His advantage! Do you ever notice how we are sometimes too busy even to listen to our creator? He's the one who has walked the path before us, knows every pitfall, and we don't have time to listen to what He has to say! AMAZING!!
As I was thinking about Lovey's little accident, the Spirit of the Lord just spoke quietly to my heart and said; "Kind of reminds you of my oft repeated warning huh? Careful! It's easy to lose your balance!" That gentle but very forceful voice brought me up short! I thought about how often I got that; I Know What I'm Doing! attitude and God ended up following me around saying; Careful, It's easy to lose your balance! AND so that He would be there to pick me up when the inevitable happened and I finally lost my balance and fell flat on my face! I thought of how I always find something or someone to blame it on as I wail to God about how unfair life is! As Lovey said, 'That ole water got me wet!" Well of course it did! Water is WET!! AND, the muck we sometimes mix up and then fall into is ugly and yucky and unpleasant, to say the least!! Of course an attitude of "It won't happen to me" is a recipe for disaster! And when you are NOT careful, you WILL lose your balance.
This lesson was reinforced Sunday morning by our Sunday School lesson as we studied about how the leaders of Israel leaned to their own desires and lusts until finally they lost their balance and fell face first into the cesspool created by their own hand. Up until that moment they had maintained that nothing bad would come of their actions and even stated that surely God was with them. Well, I'm glad that God is indeed with us, for He is the only one who can rescue us from our "face down in the dirt" position.
But, just as I scooped my granddaughter up and held her close and reassured her that she was ok, so God has done for me many times after a fall. Sometimes my falls were only witnessed by me and God. Other times my failures were allowed to be viewed by others. Public failures are perhaps more difficult as our flaws are there for everyone to see. But the lessons learned from those failures are, perhaps, much more profound.
At any rate, for me, God used a simple action by an over eager child, that ended with a sputter and a wail, to teach me a life lesson that I should have learned long ago.
"CAREFUL! IT'S EASY TO LOSE YOUR BALANCE!!"
