Ice Skating devotional. Repost from earlier notes

Note: I wrote this devotional to be published in the Enid News and Eagle in April of '03.

I took a group of kids to the city to go ice-skating during spring break. Before we go any further, I have to explain my athletic ability. I don’t have any. I am devoid of virtually all talents physical. So, you may understand that I brought along a bit of “extra” equipment for our ice-skating. As the rest of the kids were putting on their skates, I donned a pair of wind pants over my jeans and then pulled out a pillow and stuffed it between the waistband of the wind pants and my blue jeans. Thus equipped, I put on my skates and headed toward the rink. I know I looked silly, but an hour’s worth of silly was worth not breaking my tailbone. As I was about to step out on the ice, I noticed that one of my teens was nervously regarding the ice. She’d never been ice skating before and so I offered to help her out. She is a smart girl and in any other circumstance I’m sure that she would have examined the situation better before taking MY hand for help in ice skating. After all, it should have been obvious to even a casual observer that I didn’t have any confidence in my ability to keep myself upright, much less another person. But she apparently didn’t consider any of this and she willingly took my hand and together we slipped and slid around the perimeter of the rink. Later, I asked myself what kind of faith it must have taken for her to place her hand in mine and step out on the slick surface. She trusted me, obviously (perhaps her faith was a bit unfounded…). In trying to draw a spiritual application from the afternoon festivities, I realized that it takes great faith on our part reach out and accept the hand that God offers. The difference if we trust God and follow his ways, we can have confidence that God will keep us from falling. Psalm 37:24 I pray that we will all reach out and take God’s hand and follow where he leads us. Love through Christ - jeff