Cherokee Legend

I was reading something yesterday that reminded me of the footprint in the sand poem.  It was about the Cherokee braves.  Their passage into man hood has their father take them into the forest and sit them on a stump in the middle of the forest.  They have to sit there with a blindfold on and not get off that stump for the entire night.  They are not allowed to yell for help or pull up the blindfold.  They are not allowed to talk about their experience on the stump.  If they make it through the entire night, they are considered a man.  They are able to stand up to their fears and show no weakness. 

So put yourself in those shoes. You are all alone, you are in the middle of a forest with bugs, spiders, snakes, animals that might do you harm and you are not allowed to say or do anything.  You are not allowed to jump up when you feel the warm body of a snake run across your feet.  That has got to be scary.  They have to trust themselves enough to make it through the night.  Even if the brave screams out- what is going to happen- he then does not become a man.  HE has made a choice to be strong in his quest to become a man.  He has chosen to stay the course even if everything around him scares him to pieces. 

Do we trust ourselves enough to make it through a night like that?  Do we have the determination that even when the going gets tough to stick it out?  Maybe snakes are coming out of the wood work and things aren’t going our way.  Can we handle that?  We are fortunate that we can scream out to the Lord for help, but sometimes it seems like the Lord just isn’t hearing us.  At those times it is easy to scream all about it, to run off the stump and into the forest grabbing at the blindfold the entire time. 

I know that when I am scared I question a lot and everything – I wonder if what I am doing is right and when there is time that I don’t feel God’s guidance and direction, even though he guided me this direction.  I want to tuck tale and run.  I don’t always do it though- often I do and I miss out on God’s blessings but when I don’t tuck tale and run, I am blessed beyond belief. 

Jesus went through a time like this too.  When he was crucified he was without God for the 3 days that he was dead.  He had the hope, the knowledge and the belief that God was going to turn back to him. 

Hebrews 13: 5-6 “….’Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’  So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.  What can man do to me?’”

The best part of the Cherokee legend is that after the brave has spent the whole night thinking that he has been left alone, scared for his life, he takes off his blindfold and sees his father sitting on the branch – close enough to watch him, but letting him go through this on his own.  God IS just like that waiting and watching in the shadows, letting us become the people that he wants us to become.  We just have to do it!