Amateur Exploring

I love how God grows things in us... how you can't see it happening at the time, but how you suddenly look back and realise that something that wasn't there before-now is. Or at least is beginning to find a place there. In chatting to a wise woman last night ;) I remembered an analogy written by a wise man.

Imagine an ant on a sheet of glass, like a transparent glass tile. The tile is on a table, and there is a long straight line on the table. The ant runs around madly, unaware of the direction the line is going in, and blind to the fact that there is even a line. Then imagine someone taking hold of the glass, and moving it-so that whichever way the ant runs-it is always walking along the line. I am like the ant, and God is like the hands holding the glass on which I walk, bringing every mistake I make in line with his perfect will for my life.

If we ask Him to, He will help us to become accustomed to His voice, to His hand in our lives, so that we begin to realise that there is in fact a line. And that line is good-because it is the way which He ordained for us to walk. In choosing His life over mine, I chose to walk that line, whererever it takes me. Yet, fallible as always, I frequently, and constantly run in the opposite direction, and round in circles and back to the line, only to place on foot in front of the other before running off again. He however, has a very steady hand, and in His mercy is always bringing me back again. Towards Him, by His grace.

Maybe one day I'll learn that God is a good place to start.

'And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know it for the first time' T. S. Eliot