There is a way that seems right

In 7th grade, in my last year at a private Christian school, we had to memorize Proverbs 14:12

There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death.

Off and on this has stuck with me as a reminder that our best intuitions and habits might not get us where we want to go.

I was reminded of this recently at my swim practice*. At every practice, a coach tells us how far to swim and how fast. Even though I'm in the slow lane, I often struggle to make the time goals, particularly as I get more tired and the times get shorter. In the middle of a set last week, the coach hovered over the edge and said, "Watch your arm on your left side. It's crossing midline and that will tweak your shoulder." Well, actually my shoulder is already tweaked and that's probably why it keeps crossing midline. But I figured that he was the coach and I'd try it and forget about swimming fast.

Focusing on not crossing midline with my left arm was hard. I had swum miles with an arm that crossed over, and this was my first 50 m doing something new. I also noticably didn't have much muscle strength where I needed it. But amazingly, that 50 was faster than any of the "fast 50s" I had tried to swim earlier.

I wonder how often God directly or indirectly gives us coaching. And I wonder how often we resist because it requires us to give up the way we think is right, leads us down a harder path, or doesn't get us to our goals--as we see them. And then I wonder how often we'd find that submitting to the coaching is more than worth the effort if only we'd try.



* I recently joined the Southern California Aquatics in the slow lane.