I can’t even begin to tell you the crazy things I’ve done over the years due to my clumsiness. My daughters are athletic. My husband is athletic. And then there’s me. I’m not too bad at volleyball but otherwise………clumsy.
And it’s not just sports. My husband won’t let me go skiing for fear I might break something. My girls protect me in bad weather (or heels) at all costs. Roger even drops me off at the church or restaurant door and picks me up each time and I’m not sure it’s just to be nice.
They worry about my clumsiness because, well let’s face it… I do have a history! I broke my foot while walking at work. I tore a muscle in my elbow while lifting a kettle ball at the gym. The labrum in my shoulder ripped (after it had been shredded by a bone spur) while I was making fun of a kid’s out-of-bounds pass at a basketball game.
I’ve fallen up the steps and down the steps. I’ve run into things and had things run into me. I’ve tripped over the crack in the sidewalk and am probably the only person I know to end up in the ER after wrecking a sled on the alpine slide!
But there is one thing I don’t ever want to do and that is cause someone else to stumble. It would be crazy to think about each of us putting something in the path of someone else that they could trip over and fall. But yet sometimes our actions can cause others to stumble.
We may be permitted to act a certain way either by government laws, common laws or Biblical laws. But if your action causes someone else to stumble, now you have a real consequence on your hands and the Judge sits on a throne in heaven. Just because you are ALLOWED to do certain things doesn’t mean it’s always the right thing if it causes someone else to sin because they mimicked you or it caused them to stray from the Lord.
So whether you are clumsy or athletic, can walk and chew gum at the same time or can’t chew gum at all, just be cautious of your actions that may be like laying an invisible log in the path of someone’s life. If God tells you NOT to do it (even if it’s not “illegal”), don’t do it.
Clumsiness doesn’t look good on me……or yo!
Mark 9:42 – If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.
