One, Two, Skip a Few

As a child, learning to count can be really challenging. Eight, nine, twelve, fifteen. We master one set of 10, but then get confused by 11. After a while, we are able to count pretty high, and fairly easy. But let us all be honest with ourselves. At some point, usually as we play hide and seek, our counting turns into something like this,' 1, 2, skip a few, 99, a million. Ready or not, here I come. Wait a minute. what happened to all the rest of the numbers. 42, 69, 1138. All these numbers that are just skipped over like they mean nothing. But what if we are missing something every time we skip count our way through life. Go back to your childhood. When life was easy and the most interesting thing you had was how tasty your toes were. Coloring books and puzzles were our main goal in life and there wasn't a problem that couldn't be solved if you had a crayon in hand and a big imagination. Now focus on a specific kind of coloring puzzle. The Dot-to-dot. An arrangement of numbers written out that when connect in chronological order, would reveal a beautiful picture that we could color as we saw fit. What would happen if you decided to draw a line from 1 to 56, then back to 3, then up to 77 and down to 29. By the time you got to the last number, your picture would be a jumbled mess and the image revealed would look like mere scribbles compared to what it was designed to be. The same can be true for life. We might start out ok, 1, 2, 3 ,4, but along the way, we go a different direction and before we know it, we don't even realize what we have done. The events that take place in your life are all out of whack because you followed 45 with 80, instead of 46. God has laid out your life in the order that he knows will get you to the beautiful image at the end of the pencil, but when we take matters into our own hands, things go a little haywire. Maybe it is time for a do-over. A time to start back at number one, and carry the puzzle through till the end, staying the course of following God's plan. God sees all of your life like a finished picture. We sees where you will fall and where you will stand. Where you will triumph and where you will fail. Shouldn't we trust that he knows which way to direct our steps to ensure that when we fall, he has already placed things in our path to pick us back up. In the end, you too will see the picture God had designed for you. Don't try to rush through life and skip some steps along the way. Stay the course and when your pen leaves the paper the last time, you will see a masterpiece designed by the Creator of all things who wants what is best for his children.

Adam Semple- A Young Man on a Thought-out, Well planned Mission From God

*photo credit-tanya.snappingturtle.co.za