Follow The Instructions

     After a few years of substituting at the schools in Helena, Montana, I started working for the State of Montana and became a Training Administrator. The department was going through some major internal restructuring and the majority of employees were not at all happy. I had to conduct Team Building training for all employees throughout the state. One particular week I had to travel all week long. Every day I faced an angry classroom of employees and by the end of the day, we were all friends. Finally, Friday arrived. I had to face the angriest of the groups and I had not been looking forward to it. At least, I got to wear jeans and tennis shoes instead of my normal skirt and heels (Dwayne: This was a God send!). We started the introductions and within seconds I knew I had not underestimated their anger. After standing on my heels all week, my feet and legs were killing me and I started looking around the room for something to sit on. I discovered a step ladder in the corner and opened it up to have something to sit on when my feet was screaming for relief (Dwayne: Everyone looks for a step ladder to sit on, right?). Before the end of the introduction I had sat myself on the step ladder with by feet planted firmly in front of me. As the angry people were telling me their opinion of having to be in this class, I pushed by weight back on the ladder with my feet. In a split second, my worse fear was happening. I had always known somewhere deep inside that I was not going to be able to hide my klutziness from my classes forever. I knew that the day would come that I would take a big fall right in front of a classroom of people and that day was here. When I shifted my weight, that ladder and me went straight backwards. I was on my back, with the ladder under my legs and my feet straight up in the air. I have never been so thankful for casual Friday! The only thing worse at this moment was if I had been in my normal skirt! All I could do was to stand up, make a joke about it, laugh with the class, and move on. Oh, and listen to one of the guys in the class about making sure I lock the ladder into the open position! No, I did not know that before this day. I had never been on a ladder in my life! Now it is the first thing I do, but not on that day! At the end of class, the people told me that it was a great ice breaker when I fell. In fact, several of them thought I did it on purpose to help lighten the atmosphere. The others said I should do it in every class I teach! I don't think so!!!

     My problem this day was I did not take time to learn how to use something I flippantly decided to use. I could have spent some time reading the directions to step ladders and if the directions were not available to me, I could have asked if anybody knew how to use the ladder. However, it seemed so simple. I didn't need instruction for this, I was totally capable of figuring it out for myself! This kind of thinking got me flat on my back in a very humiliating and embarrassing position.
    Many times in life we go through situations that we think we are totally capable of figuring out or handling. We don't study our instruction manual: the Bible. We don't ask others for help or advice. We just do it all on our own. Then we find our self in a embarrassing position, flat on our back spiritually.
     We have instructions to life in the Bible. Do you spend time reading your manual? How much do you ask others for help? Have you ever wound up in a bad position because you didn't know how to handle something when the answers you were looking for were spelled out in Scripture if you just took the time to read it! What issues do you have going on today? Are you going to ask for advice? Are you going to read your instructions? If you don’t, you will end up falling flat on your back! It is up to you!

If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it.

James 1:5 (TMSG)