Just Around the Bend...

If I had to come up with a rule to live by, or just a piece of advice for a young person, it would surely be: “Never Ignore Anything God Puts in Your Path”. This is a rule that I’ve discovered over the years because of how my life has been blessed when I follow it and, how I have to keep dealing with the same things when I don’t.

I’m not one of those people who believe that everything happens for a reason. I’m convinced most things are simply random events. But I do believe God puts some things in our paths. He is either trying to teach us something or He’s revealing a part of us. I don’t think circumstances in life create our characters so much as they reveal them. Often they reveal us…to us.

Sometimes people come into our lives that we take little or no notice of. I’ve awakened to the fact that when I do take notice of them, and get to know them a little, my life is usually blessed for it. We still need to maintain some boundaries with people. A drowning swimmer will pull you down with them if you let them. Keeping our own boundaries clear still leaves room for getting to know some interesting people. And we never know whom we touch by simply taking notice of them.

I’ve found the people and things I’m drawn to usually have some lesson to teach me. I've often marveled that the lessons can be so profound. The burden is with me to actually see what’s in front of me.

Its funny that some people feel it necessary to go halfway around the world seeking something when the answers they seek are usually right in their own little corner of it. Maybe it takes that to open them up. I know it’s taken me years to begin to see some things right in front of me! To live life in such a way as to be oblivious to the things in our path is a shame. They can show us so much of our world and ourselves.

Remember the words of William Shakespeare: “If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.”

When you’re ready for the lesson…it will come--the readiness is all!