My son Jimmy and I were talking about life and God and he told me a story about a dog that got so excited about chasing a seagull that the dog, keeping his eye on the bird, ran clean off the cliff. The dog didn’t see the cliff, and obviously the dog didn’t know that the cliff was there. In the thrill of what he was doing the dog let all his other instincts and guidance be pushed out of his mind because he was so involved in what he was doing and he was having so much fun. Also the dog was intent on gaining his goal – nothing was going to stop him – or so he thought.
Life is like that for us at times. We set a goal and become so intensely focused on it we lose touch with reality. We hurt people trying to gain our goal because our focus is so much on ourself. We live for the moment. We live only for ourself in this situation. Now for the dog this happened fast, but for us this could happen over a year or so.
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I asked Jim a choice question.
I said you are chasing a fluttery butterfly at the top of a hill at the beach.
The butterfly is flying all over here and there, two and fro, and in order to keep with his goal he has to concentrate, going to and fro with the wind and the butterfly.
He is not in charge of what he is doing really and is throwing caution into the wind, as they say.
I said you are chasing a fluttery butterfly at the top of a hill at the beach.
The butterfly is flying all over here and there, two and fro, and in order to keep with his goal he has to concentrate, going to and fro with the wind and the butterfly.
He is not in charge of what he is doing really and is throwing caution into the wind, as they say.
Now really this is a cliff and Jimmy is heading straight for the edge of the cliff.
I am sitting on a motor scooter and I see the danger and I yell to Jim over and over again to watch out.
But Jim in all his plans and excitement can only see what he wants and what he is doing.
I yell some more realizing at this time that it wasn’t long before Jim was going over the cliff.
I am sitting on a motor scooter and I see the danger and I yell to Jim over and over again to watch out.
But Jim in all his plans and excitement can only see what he wants and what he is doing.
I yell some more realizing at this time that it wasn’t long before Jim was going over the cliff.
So I start my scooter and race Jim to the cliff edge.
My question is this: “Jimmy, what would you have me do?“, “Would you prefer that I let you fall off the cliff or would you prefer that I sped towards you at fast speed and ran into you trying to do you the less damage but pushing you away from the cliff?”
Jimmy said that he would prefer that I plowed into him pushing him away from what was unknown to him, but known to me. So I asked, “You could get hurt by the bike or me, you could break a leg, possibly break some ribs and such?” Jimmy still said that the risk, injury, suffering and pain was worth being pushed away from an unknown fate that was obviously going to be much worse.
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I said to Jim that this is how sometimes God works in our life.
He sees what the future holds. God may spend a whole year or so teachings us, guiding us, and then if at the end we don’t listen (and sometimes we don’t) and we decide that we are going to do what we want to do recklessly so off we go. God loves us, God cares for us, God sees the danger ahead. We cannot see ahead, we must have faith, and avoid worldly people and the ways of society and follow the wisdom and safely of God.
He sees what the future holds. God may spend a whole year or so teachings us, guiding us, and then if at the end we don’t listen (and sometimes we don’t) and we decide that we are going to do what we want to do recklessly so off we go. God loves us, God cares for us, God sees the danger ahead. We cannot see ahead, we must have faith, and avoid worldly people and the ways of society and follow the wisdom and safely of God.
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So if you have an accident, it could be because God allowed something to happen to you because it was less damage than the big disaster that was coming your way. If you won’t listen to God after all the hard work that God has put into correcting all the damage done by evil He will still try to help correct you and when you meet God later on “you will thank Him!” Because then you will finally understand, But for now you may not know what is happening around you – have faith in Him and what He is doing with your life.
Stay away from the continuous noises of fast society. If you are recovering from an incident you can use that time to get closer to God. Thank Him. Look to where you were going and change your course abruptly, the cliff was probably very near.
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What is obvious is that we don’t know what is happening in our life beyond what we see and hear, the rest is assumptions and guesses. We can assume a lot, we can put our faith in luck and coincidences, or we can have the common sense to realise that all things are happening for reasons that we don’t know and understand, and it is good to have someone like God to stand with us and accept His help.
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