Living with our grandson teaches us so much about patience, love, obeying instructions and free will. But I wasn't prepared this morning for God to speak to me with a wooden train set!
As the weather today is overcast and windy, it didn't look like a day for playing in the garden, so we decided that this morning would be a good day to get all Jackson's train track out and build an epic track for his Thomas the Tank Engine and friends. We've ended up with one that runs from the dining room, into the lounge and on into the hallway, even taking in the bottom step of the stairs, just because we could!
As we built the track together, we took on different roles, Ruth was sorting all the pieces by size and shape, Jackson was the visionary who had a plan in his head of where it was going to go and what it should look like and I had the job of trying to make his vision happen, despite any clear plans/instructions. The construction involved us using wooden bricks to elevate the track at various points to overcome obstacles, including the bottom step. These grandad built perilous looking structures worked in theory, until you started to run trains over them, then their lack of stability, of being built out of bricks just stacked on top of each other (no foundations or anything to hold them together) became evident as we had numerous rail disasters!
While taking some pictures of the layout, it became obvious that we'd got loads of bends and twists in our track, where we took lots of diversions from the main direction. It looked a lot like a meandering river, as it winds it's way through the countryside on it's way to the sea. It's a lot like life. As we look back, decisions we make effect our direction, often if we'd taken another decision, we could have reached our destination much quicker and with much less effort. When we reach an obstacle in life, we try and build and create our own structures with little or no foundations, where if we had followed the instructions of the architect we could reach our destination quicker and with less effort. The problem is that we think that we know better, but judging by today's experience, we don't!
I'm left wondering, am I following God's plans at the moment or am I trying to keep my life on track by attempting to build in my own strength or by meandering through the valley with no idea where I will end up?
Even if I'm following God's plan, am I prepared to wait in the station for the conductor to blow his whistle, or for the points to change so that I'm travelling on the right track, or for the signals to change, otherwise my life could end up crashing and being derailed.
Thank you Thomas and Friends!
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