In your walk with God, do you walk behind Him, in front of Him or next to Him? I know I'm guilty of doing all three. When you were a kid and you had to hold your mother's hand when you went to the store, I'm sure you had times when you squirmed or said, "I can walk by myself, you don't have to hold my hand." Right? You wanted to be independent, so you'd let go and walk behind her so you could follow her. If anything, she'd still be there for you to see. But, as children, you'd sometimes lose sight of our mother, perhaps wander off and then you're lost and have to look for her and she for us. Then, perhaps, as you got older you were embarrassed and didn't want to walk with your mother at all, so you walked in front of her and pretended not to know her. Funny thing is, there were times when you'd do that and get into trouble. You'd get lost or hurt somehow. I remember doing it in a parking lot when I was four, except I wanted to be with my mother but I didn't listen to a warning. My mother was on one side of the parking lot and I was on the other with my sister. I was told not to run across to her, but to wait. Instead, I ran and got hit by a car. Thank God it wasn't as serious as it could have been, but I was hurt and got a third degree burn on my ankle from the tire and have a scar to this day to remind me of that.

In a way, we're still like children. When we walk with God, we sometimes want to be independent and let go of His hand and walk behind Him, "I can walk by myself, you don't have to hold my hand." We want to do our own thing, follow our own way, thinking, "Well, God's in front of me, if anything happens, He'll still be there." What if we took your eyes off of Him though and lost sight of Him? We'd be lost. Amazing thing with God is that when we look again for Him, He's still in front of us. He never lost sight of us to begin with. He's always watching over us no matter what.

Then there are times when we get ahead of God. We get embarrassed, "What would my friends and co-workers think if they knew I was a Christian? Believed the things I did?" We want to walk in front of Him, pretending we don't know Him, compromising our beliefs. Or, maybe we simply just want to get ahead of God and do things ourselves. We want to take matters into our own hands thinking our way is ok. When we finally let God catch up to us, all He finds is a mess He has to clean up. Had we taken just one minute to look back, God would have been there reaching out to us saying, "Just take my hand. I'll see you through this. I have a better way, you'll see! Just give me a chance!" But we lost sight of Him when we walked too far behind Him and wandered off and before we knew it we were way too ahead of Him to realize it. Then when we get ourselves into the mess we created, we too often blame God for it, forgetting we were the ones who messed it all up in the first place. Amazing thing is, God's always ready and willing to fix it for us and make it better. The only thing we need to be is willing to let Him.

We just need to walk beside Him. If we just hold to His hand, we'll have no worries about getting lost or losing sight of Him and we'll always have that assurance that He's there and willing and able to help us through and with anything we need when we're willing to let Him. His ways are always higher than our ways, and we just need to hold to His unchanging hand, letting Him lead the way to wherever it is He wills for us. Here are some verses to think on.