You’ll never guess what caught my eye the other day. It was an auction posting for a beautifully colored parasail.
You know about these, right? A parasail is a modified parachute. You strap yourself into the parasail’s harness and a ski boat tows you and the parasail aloft with a 300 foot cable. Some say there’s nothing like it. Others say it’s to die for.
Well, any kind of flying interests me, so I kept reading.
The seller listed numerous featues such as the dimensions, colors, and shape; the included body harness and tow cable; as well as the condition and price.
It was all sounding pretty good till I got to this one line at the bottom: “Instructions not included.”
And I got to thinking, Who buys a parasail without instructions? More to the point, Who straps himself into one without instructions?
Two types, I guess. One says, “Aw, c’mon! What’s the big deal? I’ve seen ’em do it on TV. How hard could it be?”
The other has had considerable experience at parasailing and knows parasails. He knows enough to know that everything’s included and in good condition, and he’s absolutely confident he can fly the thing.
Where am I going with this? Maybe I’m pushing the analogy too far, but it seems to me that a lot of us are parasailing through life without instructions.
If we’re like the first guy, we’re totally clueless. We’ve never done it before. But we think can handle it since we’ve watched others do it. Who needs instructions? Let’s go! We’re blissfully ignorant of the dangers we face.
If we’re like the second guy, our considerable abilities and experience in life give us the notion that we don’t really need any help at all. We plunge right into each day and situation with overconfidence rather than a sense of our need. After all, we’ve done this thousands of times, haven’t we?
Either way, our Heavenly Father’s carefully written Instructions lie unopened. We don’t pause to ask for His input because we’re either ignorant or overconfident. The Spirit of God desires to personally apply the Instructions to our life situation. But our pride quenches His desire.
And off we go. Parasailing without instructions.
Friend, let’s get out the Instruction Book, whether we’ve never done this before, or whether we’ve been doing it a long, long time.
Blessings,
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