Is anybody here a swimmer?

Well I swim, and I�d like to tell you about a meet that I had last year. A fun stroke to do is the back stroke. Just gliding along, one can easily breathe, or look around�its great. Well the first time that I ever swam it in a meet was in Sante Fe. It is a very neat pool, really fast and whatnot. But there�s something that every inexperienced back-stroker would mention about their pool: The roof is not aligned with the pool. It is not that big of deal for somebody that knows what they�re doing because they can just see the lane line, and they swim straight. But for somebody new to this stroke like me�it was helpless. I needed something to guide me. While I was looking up at the ceiling I would try to follow a beam, but it only led me into the side of the pool. I believed that I was following something that would guide me safely, but I was wrong.

God shows us the right path, and the way that He wants us to go. My swim coach told me to simply look at the lane line, but I did not listen to him, and I was not obedient. And since I did not listen I ended up straying away. It is so easy to stray away from God. Sometimes it feels like God is not near, and that we have to search for God. I often ask myself why God can�t just talk to me like he did to the people in the Bible. But he is, right now. And I just mentioned it�did you catch it? It�s in the Bible. God has given us a grid to live by. God has shown us that path of righteousness that He intends us to live by. He gave His only son as a perfect example, and Jesus Christ was documented in the Gospels. Paul then lived, and was an amazing example of obedience to his Lord Jesus Christ.

It is easy to stray away, and often we�d rather pick and choose what we would like to hear, or what we would like to follow. I learned that although the roof looked like a good path to follow, it was the wrong one, and lead me to destruction and defeat.