Follow the Leader

 
 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

This past Fall, I had the joy of riding with my 9 year old to school on bikes because her school was  less than a mile away.  I am not sure if every kid has this unspoken desire to walk or ride their bike to school, but I had seen enough episodes of Little House on the Prairie, to be excited about getting her to school in anything but a car.

In the beginning, I would ride in front of my daughter as we worked on some basics like looking both ways.  I would teach her along the way to look out for cars making a left turn, cars making a right turn, etc etc.  It was kind of like the scene on "Finding Nemo" when Nemo's dad is taking him to school and overdoes the "look both ways" talk.  After that, we went over some damage control issues because she was learning how far she could travel behind me on our route.  Instead of choosing to be too far away, she actually chose to be right behind me, which meant there were times I would come to a stop and she would bump right into the back of my tire.

As we are coming to an end of her school year, I proudly watch as I allow her at times to take the lead.  She confidently heads out, making sure I see that she is looking in all the directions I have taught her to look.  Whenever she gets a little too far ahead, I have to ring my bell for her to slow down, but otherwise, she's pretty self sufficient.  I think it might be a little too soon for her to ride to school without me, but I think that when that days comes, she will be a great rider.
Following the leader can be like this at times.  When we follow God as our leader, we must wait before we rush out on our own to get to our destination.  As much as my daughter felt confident enough to lead us on the first day, the reality was, she was not equipped to do it safely or successfully without my guidance.
Most people, like myself included, want to run with the ball once we get it in our hands.  God makes it easy for us to follow Him by giving us a helper, called the Holy Spirit.   Some of us don't know this, so we don't look for guidance.  Some of us don't understand how to follow, so along the way we end up following our best guess or reasoning.  Then there are some of us who just plain straight out say, "no thank you", I can't go that way today.  We lack the trust and try to lean on our own understanding instead of the way we are being called to go.
I have been in all three sets of shoes and I can tell you that the most exciting and adventurous shoes to be in are the ones that follow His lead even when it doesn't make sense.