When I run, I tend to do a lot of deep thinking. I tend to think about the problems from the day, conversations I had or should have had, upcoming messages or songs that I should write one day. As I get lost in thought, I zone out completely. I’ve lost track of time. I’ve crossed streets without looking. I’ve had near misses with sign poles. Dumb stuff.
A couple days ago, I was running and found myself in this exact state… I didn’t run too far though because I now set my watch to go off when it is time to head back… While running, I was looking down, not looking further than probably 3 or 4 feet when my thought was suddenly interrupted by a small snake that I was about to step on. So I reacted quickly and became quite the hurdler. Most people in their right mind probably would have stopped and gone around, but my instinct for whatever reason was to go over it. After a few steps, I looked around to see if anyone had seen me hurdle a seemingly invisible object but fortunately, it was only God laughing.
As I was recovering, I started wondering how often I miss the danger ahead of me because I am so focussed on my own agenda, thought, goals, etc. If I had just been looking a little further down the path, I would have seen the snake before I was on top of it and would have had a better opportunity to navigate around it without looking like I was day dreaming about hurdling.
All that to say, it was a great reminder to me to keep the vision and bigger picture in front of me and to stay alert. God tells us that the devil prowls around like a lion, looking for someone to devour. There are times in life that if we will look down the road, and see where we are headed that we can identify the dangers along the way. If we will do this we can take necessary action to avoid dangers that could slow us down or stop us from progressing.
About five minutes later, I was still on edge when I heard from behind me, “on your left.” I whipped around with my fists loaded up only to be embarrassed when a nice gentleman with a warm accented voice apologized for scaring me. We both laughed and he rode on.
