God's Tiny Course Corrections

(and the big ones too)

A current blessing in my life is getting to spend a lot of time with the young kids of my friends and family. Aged everywhere between 0 and 6, I love watching them discover life bit by bit, giggling their way through days and, at times, mad dogging you for seemingly no reason.

I find a lot of peace in just following them around, giving them space to explore backyards and different houses, theme parks, zoos and malls alike. And I’m constantly in awe of the way they make small things big and trivial things amazing, bringing color and focus to parts of the world I might never have noticed.

But I’m also in security mode.

As I walk a few steps behind them, I’m constantly trying to assess different dangers in the area—to be aware of rogue corners, small objects, hot ovens, high steps and the occasional loose screw. When I’m put in charge, I know it’s my responsibility to make sure they’re safe, to see the things they don’t, to course correct them away from threats they would otherwise miss.

And the other day, as I had my hand covering the edge of a marble side table, and then I kicked a sharp stick into a bush, and then I moved a pair of gardening shears from a low shelf to a high one, I wondered how similar I am to a child in the eyes of God. How often am I going about my day when he moves something, quiets a threat, redirects me from a dangerous place to a safe one without me even noticing?

Often when I’m driving, I’ll have moments that feel so close. A sudden stop just in time, a swerve at just the right angle, some last minute peripheral vision—moments that feel like getting away with something. But what about the moments I don’t see (both in and out of the car)? The moments of ignorant bliss where nothing in my day changes, nothing blips by on my radar, and I just mosey along, like a child.

Faith doesn’t promise we will never find danger, and it doesn’t make us immune to hurt. But to believe in God is to believe there is someone looking out for you, protecting you from things you cannot see—protecting you, at times, from yourself.

When a parent watches a child, they try to do absolutely everything they can to prevent anything bad from happening. They want to see EVERYTHING, but they can’t.

God on the other hand, can see everything. He knows the ways in which we will be hurt, knows the seasons we will walk through that, at times, won’t make us feel protected. Moments when we’ll want to stomp our feet and ask, where are you? or even, how could you let this happen?

Even as I write this, I struggle with that and am aware of the deep pain and grief around the world that warrants such questions and provokes valid doubt in the goodness of God. But then, so many of those stories have hope rooted in the middle of them, unexplainable good things that happened in the aftermath, redemption that, I believe, can only come from God. And while that doesn’t make those things easy to accept, understand or hold, it helps me have faith that there are bigger plans at work. That even in the hardest seasons, God is still there, following us around like a protective parent, wanting to help us at every turn.

He hears our cries, our hurt, and our doubt and he holds them, aware of the ways we are struggling, but also aware of the pain we’ll never have to know because of his protection, aware of the destruction we were running full speed towards before he directed us another way.

Life is difficult, faith is difficult, being a child—a teenager, an adult—is difficult. But I find ease when I lean on my faith. When I imagine myself as that little kid toddling around the world and God protectively covering the (mostly figurative) sharp corners, methodically moving obstacles out of my way so I can get where I’m going safely.

The love I have in my heart for my niece as I follow her around is immeasurable—a deeper love than I’ve ever felt before—so it’s comforting to know that God follows me and protects me with even greater love than that, with greater patience, greater wisdom, greater compassion, and greater strength.

I’m never too old to have God watching over me, and I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful for the blind spots God affords me, for the moments that felt so close but not quite, and for the dangers I’ll never know I walked right beside—for forever being my shield.