Thursday, March 06, 2014

Biweekly Bits #3: On Getting Lost...

After writing 26 bits, I realized that there is so much I could elaborate on with each of my bits. So I decided to turn them into a biweekly (i.e. fortnightly) series, for the next year.



If you try to walk home alone, you might get lost.  When I was three years old, we were waiting for my dad to finish talking to everyone after church. Being impatient (and impetuous), I thought that he was taking much too long, and took it upon myself to walk home instead. On the way there, I took a wrong turn at a fork in the road and got lost. Sometimes, it's just better to wait on your Father. 

Every time my mother tells this story it makes me laugh. Can you imagine my teeny tiny three-year-old self, bedecked in my Sunday best traipsing down the road, determined to take myself home because my father was simply taking much too long for my tastes? Hilarious. Stop for a minute, and picture it, and laugh.

However, there's a lesson to be learned here. As children of God, we sometimes do with our heavenly Father, as I did with my earthly one. We think that he's taking to much too long to do something in our lives, so we take it upon ourselves to make our own way. And sometimes, as I did, we get lost along the way, because we don't know the path as well as we thought we did.

It's not like I didn't know that my father was going to take us home, because I did. My problem was that he was doing it in his timing, and not in mine. I didn't think it was worth it to wait on my father's timing, so I tried to do it according to what I thought was best. And for a time, things went well, but at the end of it all, it took much longer for my parents to find me and rescue me from my adventure, than it would have taken for me to just wait.

Part of this walk with God is trusting that He knows what he's doing, in understanding that His timing is always better than if we tried to do things on our own. So learn from my experience as a little kid, and wait for God's timing, or you might take the wrong fork in the road. 

And if you've learned this lesson before, take a moment to laugh at the silliness of your immature self, if you would like to. 

Be blessed and shine under God's guidance!

2 comments:

  1. Love this one! I've got a similar story...my mother told me that when I was about three I got myself lost, too. Only, I took my tricycle down a major highway looking for a convenient store for some candy. I am so thankful that my heavenly Father kept me safe until my mother realized I was lost and came and found me. I can still be that independent sometimes, not waiting for the Lord to take me to the place I think I need to go and charging ahead without His guidance. But, when I wait for the Lord to direct my steps, He takes me to the place where I truly need to be and in His perfect timing.

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    1. lol Chanda, I love your story! Apparently I also left home to go to the store on my own when I was around that age. Fortunately, I passed a fire station on the way, and they managed to hold my attention long enough for my parents to find me!

      Sometimes it is hard to wait on the Lord's timing for things. We feel that there's no point in waiting for Him, even when He has already promised us that He would do whatever He said He would. But that is the challenge of faith: living like we believe that God's words are true, even if it means that we have to wait.

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A person finds joy in giving an apt reply—
and how good is a timely word! -Prov 15:23