Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth's rite of Passage?
His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone.
He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays
of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone.
Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.
He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad mustcome into manhood on his own.
The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some human mightdo him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man! Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold.
It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him.
He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.
We, too, are never alone.
Even when we don't know it, God is watching over us, sitting on the stump beside us.
When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to Him. In the O.T. book of Jeremiah, we read, "Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and incomprehensible things you do not know." I have observed that oftentimes we do not reach out to God because of our pride, or because of our sin. But this is not wise. Jesus said, "It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick." This provides you and I with hope as we are "unhealthy" (if we are honest). Further, this gives us confidence to boldly reach out to God, the God who is sitting right next to us all night waiting ... waiting for us to reach out to Him in the darkness.
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