It was only one minute or less. I just went around the corner into the kitchen, leaving my nine month-ish daughter on the floor of the living room playing. (She was a beautiful child who was very curious and did everything very early.) Suddenly, we heard a wailing cry that frightened us and we raced into the living room.
There we found our precious treasure standing on the fully extended table top of her high chair wobbling back and forth. Her cheeks were red and wet with tears; her hands were subconsciously rocking to try and achieve balance. In that one minute, she had managed to climb up the high chair, under the table, onto the chair, and finally, onto the table top. I’m sure up until that moment, she was secure in the solidness of the chair, but once on the unsteady table she suddenly realized her dangerous predicament and she cried for us.
Do we not often do the same thing in our lives? We start on our own paths, not bothering to ask the Lord for direction or for His will. All seems well until we end up wobbling, barely able to stand and close to falling so we cry out for help and wondering how we ended up in such a mess, and why God is allowing the mess to happen. Come on, admit it; we’ve all done this before, many times.
The Israelites had the same problem. Twice, after they entered the Promised Land they neglected to ask direction of God and ended up in trouble: Ai (Jos. 7:3,4) and the Gibeonites (Jos. 9:4-15) “asked not counsel at the mouth of the LORD” Abraham bore a child through Sarai’s maid trying to ‘help’ God with His promise. Elijah ran from God when He found out Jezebel was out to kill him.
We make all kinds of choices without the Lord’s guidance. Believe me, He is with all of us at the same time (Ps. 139:7-10), He is all knowing (Is. 46:9,10) all powerful (Rev. 19:6), and He wants to be a big part of our lives, so He can handle guiding (Ps. 31:3) each of us through our days. Do we confine God’s input to only the big decisions in life such as marriage, house, car, children, or do we allow Him to influence all our decisions? We feel secure until we start ‘wobbling’.
I think sometimes we don’t want His input on the smaller matters, or we just might find out He doesn’t want us to eat that donut, go to that party, buy that new tablet, etc. We also don’t want to be told ‘no, stay out of it’, ‘give your ipod to Sam’, ‘you’re spending too much time on the computer’ or ‘stop criticizing your pastor!’ But there is a lot more security and safety when we seek God’s guidance often- and follow it! It doesn’t mean we’ll never find ourselves in trouble, but it will happen less often and our loving and trustworthy Father will come running when He hears us cry! (Ps. 34:17)