A Guide

This is another thing they were talking about at Quiver.

If you ever decide to walk across Morecambe Bay, you can't just set off on your own. There's a heck of a lot of quicksand out there, and you've no way of knowing where it is. You might remember the story of the Chinese cockle pickers who were out and drowned when the tide came back in. You see, the trouble is not only the quicksand, but also the fact that the tide round there comes in very fast. I watched it once, because they have a thing that goes off about half an hour before it comes in (don't quote me on that, might be ten minutes, it was a while ago). It was incredible. One minute, there was nothing, no ocean, nice flat sand. Next minute whoosh and there was water everywhere. If you find yourself doing ok, out in the middle of the bay, prodding at the sand as you go, pretty confident, and then you discover the tide coming in and you start running, well, you're not going to be checking so careful and you're liable to stumble into a patch of quick sand. That's why there's a guide.

Life is a bit like Morecambe Bay. There's a lot of quicksand out there, a lot of danger, and when you start getting a bit flustered and stressed, you're more likely to fall into it, and then whoosh, in comes the tide or down you sink and you're gone. If you set off out there alone, there's nobody watching your back when things get rough, when the tide looks like it's gonna come in at any minute and suck you up, you're liable to get stuck in the quicksand. If you go with a guide though, well, that's a different matter. You can avoid the quicksand because you've somoene there to say 'step where I step, do what I do'. Jesus is the guide. I was saying this to one of my friends at school and she was like 'yeh, but what if you're the first person to do something'. How different was being the first person to fly to being the first person in space, feeling wise? How different is being the first person to do something ot being the first person to do just about anything else? And bear in mind that Jesus went through stuff similar to what we're going through. Maybe not identical. But being mocked stirs up pretty much the same feelings no matter how it's done. Unlike the Morecambe Bay thing though, God is there. You're just not choosing to follow him. But if you find yourself stuck in quicksand, no reason you can't turn round and say 'help!' and God'll come and fish you out. Maybe it won't feel like it at first, it might take time and work to get all the gloop off've you, but it's a start, isn't it?

Remember, God made you special and he loves you very much.