Feet in the Net: Psalm 25:15

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There's a show on Netflix called The Floor is Lava, on which teams of contestants are told to get from one end of the room to the other without touching the floor, which is covered in four or five feet of bubbling red water ("lava"). They have to jump from one piece of furniture to another to do so. On one episode, there was a giant cargo net that contestants could release from the ceiling and then jump to.

One lady was on that net, and I was sure she wouldn't get off of it. I thought her feet were going to get tangled up in that net and she'd fail to make it to the next landing spot. But since they do this in teams, there was a team leader a bit ahead of her, someone to hold the net from one direction, and she extricated her foot pretty smoothly without falling into the water.

Sometimes, we have so many complicated situations in life, that it surely feels like the floor is lava. If you step here, they'll get mad. If here, you'll suffer. If here, that person will be hurt. If there, you'll fail to uphold a commitment. The floor is lava.

And then you take the jump. Make a decision. Try to do something. And, nope, that was a cargo net. You're stuck. Bad decision. Your feet are all tangled up, and you're out of options.

But if you develop your relationship with Jesus Christ, you find help in the here and now. Jumping through your life by yourself is selfishly enjoyable. Or it is the only option you think you have. Or you never knew another way. But the person who goes through life on God's team, with Jesus Christ, and who intentionally builds trust in that relationship, finds the complications that much more manageable.

David expressed this idea in Psalm 25:15: "My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net” (ESV). He had a complicated life, to be sure, and he knew that relying on God was the only way to successfully navigate it all. And so he said that his eyes were "ever"--or always—on the Lord because when the net tangles the feet, God untangles it.

Are your eyes ever—that is, always—on the Lord? Or do you act like the precocious child with the knotted shoelaces that will not allow the parent to help: "No! I can do it!" If your feet are tangled in the net, maybe now is the time to say, "God, would you help? I really need you, and I'm not too proud to ask, to follow you, to adjust my life." And if your feet are not in the net now, maybe they will be someday. What are you doing to develop that team spirit, that trust in God, that relationship with Jesus so that you can navigate the course without staying tangled in the net?