Thursday, November 09, 2006

Lesson learnt on a Muddy n Slushy Road - 20th June

Last night will probably will be one of the most memorable part of my life. My mom had come down to spend a few days with me and she had to leave today early morning and because of the very close relationship that my mom and I share we had actually thought of staying up the whole night and just talking and chatting. We were at my brother’s place so that it would be easy to pack off to the railway station the next day early morning. What happened was that my brothers and a few friends too joined in and we were all sitting with mattresses spread on the floor and some on the cot chatting away – relishing every moment together as a family, sharing all those childhood days stories, the embarrassing moments we’d been through, pulling each others legs……. In short we were all having a real wonderful time when all of a sudden one of us noticed that water was coming in through the front door to our drawing room. It was then that we realized the heavy outpour of rain on the outside.

For about 30 seconds we just didn’t know what to do and all of a sudden there were different feelings in the room. A few were annoyed and irritated, a few just started running up and down trying to get everything to a safe place out of the reach of the water cos the water had started flowing in a lot faster now and before we even realized our feets were already submerged in water. My brothers, who had grown in a place deprived of any beach, waterfalls, lake, or for that matter any water kind of fun, were really excited and had started having fun inspite of the dirty water. After about 5 minutes when everyone realized that we were stuck this way till it stopped raining, the scenario changed and everyone decided to make the best of it and so began the fun by taking snaps and acting like in a sea and when everything we could think of was done, everyone huddled in the remaining available spaces (cos all the places above water level were filled with things we wanted to save from the dirty water) and started chatting again till finally I guess mom and I dozed off.

Today morning when I got ready to leave for office and went to the bus stop to catch my company bus, I found that the road from the house to the main road was awful. One look at the road and I was unsure if I would make it to the bus stop in time to catch the bus. It was all slushy and muddy and watery here and there, slippery at some places too. As long as I looked at the road all the way till the main road it was discouraging – very discouraging, specially after a night of no sleep and in a tired mood. Was even tempted to just go back home and get into a warm blanket and go back to sleep.

Then carefully making sure I stepped on the driest area possible I took one step and then another and then another…….. very carefully was taking care that I don’t get my trouser dirty or slip anywhere…… it didn’t seem that bad as long as my mind was just focused on that next step. After about 5-6 steps when I again looked up at the road it was again back with all its dirt and making me feel if I would again reach in time. Something clicked then……………

I realized that as long as I was focused on just taking the next step I was doing fine and was even moving forward. But whenever my focus shifted to the entire way till the road I stopped and started contemplating going back home and sleeping. I just decided to focus on the next step after that. While just walking this way I realized a greater truth. There are so many times when some challenge or some problem or some decision that I’ve taken would seem like this road to me. There are so many times when God wants me to take a path and I would look at it just the way I looked at the road. I would just look and wonder and look and wonder and just stand there thinking – Should I just leave all of this and just go back?? There are times I’ve easily decided something only to find myself looking at the decision just the way I was looking at this road. Through the walk through the muddy, slushy road God taught me a lesson to just learn to take a step at a time. To take a step is not as hard as facing the whole challenge or the whole problem. And so just take the next step. Let your focus be on that next step.

There’s a song I’m reminded of. It goes this way
Step by Step to the glory land
My Saviour guides with his loving hand……………
For Step by Step he will lead me

Hebrews 10:36 - You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised
Hebrews 10:39 - But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

And yeah, I did catch the bus on time :)

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