I did a misstep while going up and down from the pavement onto an elevated area while jogging one morning.
It badly hurt my ankle, my first in my entire life.
I sprained my ankle how many times in the past, but they were never so bad I couldn’t walk. I would wiggle my sprained foot, massage it a little bit and I’d be good. This one was different – I couldn’t walk at all.
I had to hop from the area of accident to an area where I could sit down and rest my swollen left foot.
While I wasn’t so far from our place, there was no way I could hop my way to there. And my ankle was getting painful as time passed by. Like most people walking, jogging or running in the neighborhood, I didn’t bring anything with me. Not even my cell phone.
So there, I was sitting by the pavement, with an injured foot and no means to get help. In a matter of second, with one misstep, I couldn’t afford to go home.
I was grinning and shaking my head in disbelief.
I just left home a few minutes ago planning to do a two-lap jog in the neighborhood. And just before I finished my first lap, I did a misstep, and then I could neither finish my jog nor I could go home safely.
That One Misstep
In Our Christian life, there is this one misstep that can disable us to finish the faith race or go home to our Father securely.
This one misstep is not necessarily explosive fitting a newspaper headline. It could actually be the things done in secret, without caution or plainly out of line in the Spirit.
This misstep probably falls within the fence of contemporary culture that heralds “if it feels good and doesn’t hurt anybody, well that’s ok then.”
The problem with this mentality is the assumption that the act must hurt someone to hurt God. And all Bible and Christ believers know that it is never the case.
The Bible is full of personalities who chose to compromise in the thought that their actions were harmless. You can check the stories of Achan in Joshua 7 and Solomon in 1 Kings 11. Achan’s was a willful deception that can be likened to someone saying, “It is okay. God will forgive me.” Solomon’s, on the other hand, was a slippery slope, a little compromise here and there, that led eventually to immorality, idolatry, and other sins. Both found themselves immersed in larger-than-life problems and wasted potentials.
Of course, my injured foot can still get better. But the misstep I did on that morning had irreversible effects on my plans for almost a week. I had to reschedule some appointments, endure uncomfortable sleeping position and pattern, and give up some mommy duties. All because of a careless, uncalculated action.
While a misstep is not necessarily a dead-end street, it could have been prevented, or mitigated at the least. I could have just jogged and forgot about jumping up and down by the elevated area. I used to do it with so much ease that I never thought of hurting myself.
Sometimes, we are lured into doing something either because of its subtlety or we overrate ourselves. And only after we find ourselves locked in damaging habits, relationships and lifestyles that we realized the negative ripple effect of our action.
The Rescue Came
After about 30 minutes of wait, someone saw me and helped me get back home.
No words could explain how grateful I was to this lady who went her way to get her car, drive back and ask her husband to help me out since she was in the driver seat.
As the husband ushered me toward our residential building’s elevator from the parking lot, I was reminded how God, our Heavenly Father, always provides a way toward Him – toward our heavenly home – even after a dangerous misstep.
“But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” –Gen. 8:1
___
If you are interested in reposting or reprinting one of my posts, please check out my Permissions Policy page. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Photo Credit: Wrong Turn Franchise
Leave a Reply