Out on a limb

This morning on my way to work I saw something adorable: A fat, fluffy-tailed squirrel roaming through a very bare pecan tree searching for tidbits to eat.

Squirrels fascinate me and I enjoy watching them. This little guy was scurrying from limb to limb, checking the hulls of the tree for nuts that may have not yet fallen to the ground.

I watched carefully and he climbed up one branch then hopped over to another. It's amazing how these little creatures will take a leap like that without hesitation, never thinking that if they fell, it would be their end.

Then he did something I didn't expect at all: He scooted that fat little derriere of his out onto this teeny, tiny, skinny twig of a branch to search for a nut. I'm still shocked, remembering back, that the twig didn't snap under his weight and send him tumbling to the ground.

I was so enthralled by it, I had to just sit and watch until he moved off it. I had to be sure he made it off that twig and on his merry little way unharmed.

He did, of course. After searching the empty hulls at the end of the twig, he carefully turned around and made his way back onto a bigger, thicker, and much safer branch.

I could not help but liken myself and so many others to that squirrel. There he was, the twig beneath him swaying and trembling in the wind and from his weight, and yet he knew he wasn't going to fall. And I had my feet planted firmly on the ground, eyes turned skyward, worried for this little guy. Yes, I just knew the twig would snap any minute and he was going to fall.

Well, you already knew which of us was right.

I live so much of my life that way: Staying on the firm, comfortable ground I am familiar with, too scared and worried to allow myself to make the short trip out on that limb. It doesn't matter what the potential payoff would be, either. All too often I give up a really great unknown for a ho-hum, or even horrible, known.

My faith in myself and the world around me falters when I start that trip out on that limb. I see the prize at the end, so I place my feet on the limb and start out. But those first few steps are so scary and uncertain.

Too many times I have quickly given up before my adventure even began.

And, of course because I am a Christian, I question myself and my faith in God. After all, if I step out onto that shaky, thin twig where He guides me, surely He will catch me if it snaps and I fall. Won't He?

If it is truly He who has brought me to that point, will the twig even break?

Why do I fear and doubt? Where does my faith go at those times?

It would be impossible to list the innumerable times God has held me, guided me, and moved me not just from an unsafe place to one that was safe, but from a comfortable place to one much better than where I was. One I would have never ventured to on my own.

Sure, the going was often bumpy. We humans are creatures of habit and comfort, and we want to know the outcome before we begin. I do, anyway. And yet so many times in my life, when I have been unhappy and uncomfortable in my know, yet unwilling to step out onto a limb to escape it to what seems to be a better, brighter unknown, God pushed me.

No, not a hard push. Just a nudge in the right direction.

Or, now that I think of it, a hard push. One that seemed painful at the time, but that sent me through a door into a new place that was much better than where I was before.

And of course after I look around me and I think back to where I came from, and I think, "What was I so scared of? Why didn't I have faith sooner? Why didn't I just move on my own?"

Luckily God forgives us our reticence and continues to guide, nudge, push and prod us along our way, moving us from hazards seen and unseen, from bad things known to good things unknown. And He never misses a moment, a beat, a breath of our lives.

I keep thinking about that little squirrel and how much I want to be like him in my daily life, knowing that I don't have to worry about that next step. Because no matter how shaky and unstable it may seem, God's there to hold me up.

Who knew a squirrel could be a role model.