One night when the kids met Dave at the campfire, it was cold! The warmth of the fire felt good, and Dave told them a story about a winter activity at camp.
Dave asked if any of them had ever used snowshoes to walk in deep snow in the winter. None of the kids had ever done this, and some of them had never even heard of snowshoes. Dave explained that snowshoes strap onto your boots and they are wider and much longer than your feet. This gives a person a much wider footprint and keeps them from sinking as far into the snow. If the snow is three feet deep, a person wearing snowshoes would only sink into the snow about four or five inches. This makes it much easier to walk in deep snow. However, if that person happens to fall, it can be very difficult to get back onto your feet when you fall into three feet of snow, so it is best to learn how to snowshoe and to practice in shallow snow.
Dave once took a group of high school students into the woods to teach them how to snowshoe. The snow was only about a foot deep, so it was a great time to teach this winter activity. There was only one difficulty; one of the girls in the group had a younger sister who was ‘tagging along’ with the group. This young girl’s name was Dawn, and she was only in 6th grade. The high school girls really did not want Dawn to come with them, but there was nothing they could do about it. Dave showed the group how to attach the snowshoes to their boots and demonstrated how to walk with snowshoes. Dave told them that they had to keep their feet far apart so that they did not trip on their own snowshoes. Also, he told them not to get too close to the person in front of them so that they would not step on the back of their snowshoes and trip them.
The group started out, and there were a few moments when some of them almost fell, but they soon learned how to walk with their snowshoes. Dave then took them on a snowshoe trail into the woods. It was beautiful and peaceful, the snowshoe trail took them into part of the woods that did not have any other trails in it, so the white snow was unbroken and awesome to see! It was also very quiet, the only sounds were some birds in the distance, and the soft crunching sound of the shoeshoes as they packed down the snow with each step. Suddenly the peace was shattered by a girl screaming! Dawn had accidentally stepped on the back of her sister’s snowshoe and they both fell into the snow! Since it was only a foot deep, they were able to get up without much trouble, brush the snow off themselves and continue to walk. Dawn’s sister was not happy, and she warned Dawn not to do that again! However, Dawn thought that it was very funny to trip the older kids, so she got close to another of the high school kids, and stepped on his snowshoe on purpose. He was mad and so were the rest of the high school kids, they did not want Dawn to ruin their time in the woods, so they told Dawn to leave them all alone!
Dawn dropped back to the end of the line and walked by Dave. She was quiet because the rest of the kids had just yelled at her. Then Dawn got an idea! It was not a good idea, but she thought it would be fun! She stepped on the back of Dave’s snowshoes and they both fell into the snow! Dawn expected Dave to yell at her, but Dave began to laugh, and then Dawn began to laugh too! They got back on their feet, brushed the snow off their clothes and began to walk again. About ten steps later Dawn tried it again! She stepped on Dave’s snowshoes and they both fell into the snow laughing. This was so much fun that Dawn kept doing it. The high school kids did not understand how Dawn and Dave could enjoy falling into the snow, it did not make any sense to them.
The high school kids walked on, acting cool, and not enjoying themselves. Dawn continued to step on Dave’s snowshoes, and they continued to fall, they were having a great time!
At last, the end of the trail was in sight. They could see the trail curve around a small valley and then end at the camp buildings. Dawn and Dave were not ready to end their fun yet, so they decided to make their own trail and go across the small valley. It seemed like a great idea! At first there were no problems, their snowshoes helped them to make their trail through the valley, and they did not sink into the snow, but this seemed boring to Dawn. She got an idea! She stepped on Dave’s snowshoes once again to make him fall! There were many small trees in this valley, and when Dave started to fall, he reached out and grabbed the nearest tree. But there was something that neither Dave nor Dawn knew about! That tree was not a healthy tree, there was something wrong with it! It did not have strong roots holding it in the ground! When Dave grabbed the small tree to keep from falling, the tree began to fall! So, the tree, Dave, and Dawn all fell into the snow! It was the funniest thing that had happened all day! They had knocked down a tree! Dawn and Dave lay in the snow and laughed so hard! The high school kids thought that they were completely crazy!
That day Dave and Dawn became closer friends, and they always remembered that special snowshoe adventure in the woods. Years later, after Dawn had grown up, sometimes Dave and Dawn would see each other, and if either of them mentioned the word ‘snowshoes’, they both got a big smile on their faces. They remembered that day, the fun of falling in the snow, and that tree falling with them!
We can learn something very special about God from this story! This life that we live on earth is not easy, many times we have difficult things happen in our life and we feel like we are constantly ‘falling down’. The Bible talks about this. In the Bible in James 1:2-4 it says:
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
Also, in the Bible in Romans 8:28 it says:
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.
These verses tell us that God uses everything that happens in this life on earth to make the believer’s character better and when this life on earth is over, we will be ready to spend forever with God in heaven. These verses also say that we should have joy when things are difficult in this life, and this is a hard thing to understand. No one enjoys going through bad times and hard things in life, but the believer (who has accepted Jesus into their heart) is told to be joyful. In our story this week, the high school kids also fell sometimes, and they did not laugh or enjoy the experience. The difference between the high school kids and Dawn was that Dawn was enjoying the time and making a friend. She went through the snowshoe experience with a friend! The same is true for believers; we are traveling through this life with a friend, and that makes all the difference! In the Bible in Hebrews 13:5b it says:
For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”
God will never leave the believer, even when everything in their world seems to be falling apart! We may not be laughing on the outside, but deep inside, in our heart, we can have a deep joy that goes deeper than laughter. This joy is possible because God is in our heart, and He will walk beside the believer every step of this life on earth. He loves us and is preparing us to be with Him in heaven forever! Trust God to get you through everything in this life!