It doesn’t seem to matter where you lived last winter, whether it is up north in New England, the Midwest, or the Deep South, ice and snow have been recurring guests, and not welcome ones when we have to go out and drive. Some areas of the country are well equipped to plow the roads and sprinkle salt to make the roads safe to drive. Other areas aren’t quite as ready and take longer to make the road passable.
As part of my work, I end up driving quite a bit, and those winter roads are tricky when there is ice and snow on them. The Interstates and major highways get cleared quickly, but the county roads and residential streets are another story. It takes a high level of concentration to navigate those roads and ice can be there when I least expect it. There is nothing like the excitement of feeling the wheels slip just a little when they hit a slick spot. It doesn’t take much to start sliding and there is no telling whether I will get control back or end up sliding someplace I don’t want to be.
Life it just like those roads I travel. We all know the cliché about following the “straight and narrow.” Life isn’t made of the straight and narrow, however, and there are all sorts of bends and curves, hills and dips, and don’t forget the potholes. This, however, is about the ice and snow and the slipping and sliding that goes with it. It can sneak up on you, just starting with a slight slip, maybe just one or two wheels, and if you recover properly, then you are okay. What happens if you don’t do it right? You can take one heck of a ride. If you lose all of the traction at the same time, and can’t get to an area when you can regain it, then you know what is going to happen next. What you know is you don’t know what is going to happen next. Are you going to slide off of the side of the road or are you going to be playing “bumper cars” with another vehicle? Whatever it is, you don’t have any control. That is when you start blaming yourself for getting into the situation in the first place.
Driving on ice and snow is just one example of how life can surprise you. How about your spiritual life? It is easy to slip just a little bit, and recover and go on. The source of the slip may not be ice; it may just be the Enemy up to his old tricks. It may be just a little temptation, something that causes just a little slip, one from which you can recognize and recover from easily. The Devil is a tricky guy, however, and once he figures out the kind of ice to put on your road, he can keep adding to it. So, you get better at either recognizing his temptations and avoiding them, or maybe you slip a little more the next time, and then more the next. What is going to happen next? Are you going to lose control completely and fall victim to the devil’s ice on life’s road, or are you going to see it in time and either avoid it completely or recover from the slide and get back on the good road surface? It depends on you, doesn’t it? Remember, little slides graduate to larger slides, and those end up in a total loss of control.
Now there is one recovery technique that works every time. You may just need someone to direct you to the good road. That someone has published a great book that has all of the directions you need, a verbal road map of sorts. The book is the Bible and the author and publisher is God. Regardless of how far or how badly you have slipped, He can direct you to the good ground. Will you read those directions?
