Snakes and Ladders

Romans 8:28 - And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and are the called according to His purpose.

When the snakes of life drag you down by the heel.. well stick out your tongue at that snake and press on because even if a bigger snake comes along and swallows you up again, the ladders always come in the most unexpected of places to take you to new heights that you would never have been able to handle if the snakes hadn't chewed you up first.

Sound very abstract?

It's simple, really :) Life is so much like a game of snakes and ladders. We all start on square 1 and God determines how the dice falls. Some of us hit the first ugly snake on square 15. Pride!Ego!Jealousy! - and we're back down to square 5. we continue on till square 63 pretty uneventfully and we hit a biiiig snake - self-centredness! God, I want to do it my way! stubbornness! and zoooom we're back down to square 10. We plod on to square 26, the ladder comes! a mission trip/camp/personal life experience? anything that allows you to encounter God and draw you closer to Him - and zoom you're up to square 70.

And so the cycle continues.

The lesson to take away is that God doesn't allow those snakes to be there for nothing. He doesn't think it's amusing, nor does He enjoy watching us suffer and whinge. But while we go down those snakes, we get rid of things God wants us to convict us of in our lives so that when the ladders come, we can go up them surefootedly and steadily.

There's no point giving a ladder to someone who doesn't know how to climb one.

Are you at the tail end of a snake? Don't think that God has forgotten you or that He's left you there to rot for awhile... no He's waiting for you to turn right back to Him and say, "God i didn't like that snake because it was nasty but with your help, I'm going to carry on because You're going to pick me up and walk me up those ladders!" - and with that, God takes you to new heights in life.

Because He makes all things beautiful in His Time.

xx

grace