Have you ever found yourself in a dry and deserted place and wondered how you ended up there? You start off hand in hand walking beside the Lord. The path is beautiful. Everything is green and lush. Springs of water are every where. The well inside you is gushing close to overflowing most of the time. The flowers are blooming and the birds are singing. You have a spring in your step and a song of praise in your heart that spills out onto your lips. You look into a pool of water on your walk with the Lord and see not your reflection, but his looking back at you. Things go along pretty good for a while, but eventually the walk gets a little harder. The valleys get deeper and the mountains are harder to climb. You begin to notice that the path is grown over. You have to blaze your own trail. It looks like no one has gone that way before. You begin to wonder if this might not be the wrong path. Is the Lord sure of where He is leading? You may never say it, but to be honest, you have thought it. The road becomes even more narrow to the point that it looks as if you are walking alone. You don't notice the birds singing nor does the grass look green. The trees have all lost their leaves. WINTER HAS COME. You have become discouraged, and your praise has become less frequent.
As you look around, you begin to see other paths that you have not noticed before. They look inviting much more so than the one the Lord may have chosen for you. Your eyes are now off of your path altogether and on the world around you. Your hand begins to slip just a little at first, then a little more. You think the Lord doesn't seem to notice. Surely He will not mind if I check out this other path for just a little while. So you begin to walk your own way. Just a little at first, you do not want to get too far away. You walk by His side, veering just a little to the right or the left. The next thing you know you are on a different path altogether. You can still hear his voice and if you stand up on tiptoes you can still see him. So you still feel safe, not at all afraid, knowing you can find your way back after you finish checking things out. "This is a much better path," you tell yourself. You wonder why the Lord did not choose to come this way. It is wide and clear and there do not seem to be any stumbling blocks. You become engrossed in all that is going on around you, unaware that you have now strayed a long way off. You begin to notice that there are no stars at night nor does the SON shine during the day. But that is okay, the path stays lit all the time any way. You continue along your way until one day you happen upon a beautiful babbling brook. The water is crystal clear and sparkling. You look down into the water to catch a glimpse of your reflection. OH MY! It is no longer Jesus' reflection that you see, but your own. You begin to see yourself for who you are. The fleshly person that you thought was dead has come back to haunt you. UGH! What an awful sight. You begin to be afraid. You look around, not a sign of God anywhere. You even stand on tiptoes. NOTHING! Where could He be? As you look around, you see all the beauty in your chosen path beginning to shrivel up and die. The beautiful birds that you once heard now look and sound like buzzards. They are circling over you, ready to devour your very being. You have never felt so alone. Your body is crying out for water. You turn to drink from that beautiful brook only to find that the water has become stagnate and polluted. The water is bitter and not at all drinkable. You begin to look inside yourself for a drink from your own well. You can see the well and even smell the water, but you cannot reach the dipper for a drink. You realize you have left it on the other path. Your lips are parched and dry and they are no longer able to praise. You want to, but you cannot, nor can your eyes cry tears of grief or even fear. You know that if you stay here much longer you will wither and die.
Thinking you can find your way out alone, you start back on the path in which you came. As you start back, you realize that there is not just one path, but many, all leading to destruction. The stumbling blocks that were not noticeable when you started down this path are now visible everywhere. How could this have ever looked so good before? There are others all around you, no one seems to know the way out. You realize some of them do not even care. You begin to wonder if you will ever find your way back to God. How could He have let me go? Does He not care that I perish? Have you ever been here? I wish I could say that I have not, but the truth is that I have. What do you do?
As I think about this, the Lord reminds me of a time when my two oldest children were small. We had gone shopping at a large department store. Mark, being the BIG four-year-old that he was, thought himself too big to ride in the cart and opted to walk beside me. Finally, he became bored with shopping and wandered off in search of something of more interest to him. In just a few minutes, I noticed he was gone and began an all-out search for him. Before I could work up a real panic, here he came back, hand in hand with an employee of the store. The lady recounted the story for me. She said he had wandered off and when he realized that he could no longer see nor hear me, he began to look for his way back. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he gave up and asked for help.
"What is your mommy's name?" she asked him.
"It is Mommy," he answered adamantly.
Seeing that she was getting nowhere, she asked him where he had left me. He told her where he had last seen me. "Good, we are getting somewhere," she thought. "What does your mommy look like?" she asked.
"She is the most beautiful mommy in the store," he answered.
The lady told me that with such a description she had no trouble finding me. And he was right, in his eyes I was the most beautiful mommy in the store. Needless to say, he never left my side again (not that day anyway).
It would be nice to think that once we get back on track that we would never stray again. But as long as we are in this body, we probably will. Whenever it happens to you, just remember to think back to where you last saw and felt your hand in God's hand. He is still there. He never moves out of His chosen path. I have found that when I call out to God with a
broken and contrite heart He always answers me. If you cannot find your way back alone, do not be afraid to ask for help. Just remember He will be easy to recognize, because He is the MOST BEAUTIFUL LORD OF ALL THE EARTH!
Even though Mark may have been out of my
sight, we never stray out of God's sight! Being the loving and good God
that he is, he will never let his children stray for long or go very
far
before he sends someone to help find their way back.
- Kate Fuqua