"Any one can hold the helm when the sea is calm."
Publilius Syrus
I'm a decent friendly and approachable guy. The problem with this is people often come to me asking for help in one way or another, albeit with education being a teacher, or help advertising someone's business or help with paperwork.
My problem is I have difficulty saying no. I often say yes and subsequently end up feeling like i have been taken for a ride or treated as a 'mug'. This usually happens because the person who has asked for help has taken advantage of me and my kind nature. But whose fault is it? Hopefully reading on will help.
When you know bad things are going to happen in a situation, however horrible that situation then seems, is sometimes easier to cope with, you can almost control what is coming head on. But the moment you stop taking control of life and let go of what is steering you, because you think that everything will be good, you are more likely to steer in to trouble. You need to have a clear focus on who is guiding you, and then when the trouble or burdens come your way you have an emergency back up to help you out.
When I was a child I use to really enjoy going to the seaside with my mum and dad. It was such a lovely event, as long as there was good weather in the sky there was something I use to really enjoy seeing, and when I was really young (and well-behaved) something that I really would enjoy doing, going on the seaside Donkey ride!
It sounds strange to people who are not use to this custom, but going to a British Sandy Beach in the height of summer and seeing a Donkey/Donkeys on the beach, letting the children ride them up and down, was sheer excitement for me. You would usually see 6 to 8 donkeys lined up in a row on the beach and depending on the type of people running the event you would have a variety of Donkeys, each possibly with a specific, yet funny name, and some dressed up or even wearing hats.
But now as an adult I see the whole thing slightly differently. When you think about it, this little adventure for the children puts the adults in a strange position. The Donkey, although apparently a docile creature, is still an animal and all animals are spontaneous, with anything able to happen at any moment. So realistically we are putting a child, our child, aged below 8 (usually) on the back of this animal is rather careless. Especially when you consider the height that the child could fall from. But come on, I must be ridiculous and completely overreacting here, realistically it should be OK, when we then see two things in front of us.
1: The Donkey has reigns on, so we must assume that there is a certain amount of control over the animal.
2: That the Donkey is controlled by the person who is walking a long side them. So again, we must assume that it is safe for our children to ride as there is control over the situation.
But could the Donkey still lose control?
Yes, of course it could, the Donkey could kick or run. Especially when you see the previous points differently, when you look at the reigns that the Donkey has on, if it was completely safe and controlled then you wouldn't need the reigns, but the real truth is that it is still an unpredictable animal.
But the next important thing is the person, the Donkey guide, we don't know these people, these people are complete strangers, yet we are happy to pass these people our child, to man handle.
When we send children to school we, as a society, are completely obsessed with what is best for our children, what is the best and safest! We become obsessed with Ofsted reports and qualifications of staff. When our child becomes sick, automatically Doctors have to be the best in the country to even be considered to look after your children. Yet when it comes to Donkey rides at the beach, we are happy to allow complete strangers to look after our young child. We allow them to pick up and put our Child on to a Donkey, without even checking if they are C.R.B checked, or have childcare regulations, are they first aid trained? Are the animals checked and treated by the R.S.P.C.A? But yet they go and walk the Donkey up and down the beach with a child, our child, sat on a flimsy but incredibly colourful saddle.
The weight must be a burden.
Then the Guide now has taken that burden of responsibility. That is a lot of responsibility, but is so easily given over. But in reality, we as humans do this time and time again.
But when we look at the Donkey, it always looks very sweet and nice. We never really hear any stories of Donkeys attacking children. And at times I have even seen Donkeys wearing cute little hats (which I am pretty sure is probably against the law now) saying "Kiss me quick" or some other seaside slogan. So we look on at these animals and at this stranger and look around and are drawn in to the world of Donkey rides, with Donkeys that look trust worthy because they are wearing a hat!
Sadly, we are often the Donkeys in this scenario, mainly due to the fact that we are carrying these very heavy burdens. We are so use to carrying something that is precious to us, however irrelevant they might be to others, of which the precious load; the load that we want to protect is sometimes the heaviest. We as a society find it easy to pile on more precious items for others to carry. We are plodding along with our normal burdens, our normal loads, continuing with our normal lives our normal jobs, which is never easy. It isn't like we were designed to carry extra jobs, loads and burdens to carry and then for us to comfortably walk on hot sand. But alas, we still do it, we dress ourselves up, sometimes sparkle, pushing our pride out, with our pride on show, our name on show. But only because it is who we are, and what is expected from us, however hard we carry on plodding along.
But it is hard, so we need a good Donkey guide, someone reliable, even if they appear to be complete strangers to the on lookers. In reality the Donkey knows the guide. The guide would have handled, fed, groomed and cared deeply for these animals (even if the only reason for doing so was just so they could make money from them, but none the less they are cared for) So, for the donkey, however much it is expected from him, and us, the truth for him should be that the people queuing up to "burden" him more are probably the strangers, putting even more precious items on them to carry.
So, if you are buying this analogy and are following with what I have been saying the question then to be raised is, if you are you Donkey, who is your Guide?
This is such an important role, because they wont just care and look after you in the winter months when things seem easier, they will also be on the beach, in the hot weather helping you walk, whilst they hold on to your reigns.
Ideally I would say allow God to be your guide, let Him get a firm grip on your reigns, but the truth is that He already is.
So think about the winter months in your life, when you are not carrying others burdens. Who is feeding, grooming, giving you somewhere to sleep and comes and sees you everyday? Ultimately remember that this person is standing there with Authority to guide you correctly.
You have to make sure that when you're helping someone you keep control, you don't pass authority on to that person. I know that's what my problem is. Keep firm with who your donkey guide is and you won't be feeling like you've 'mugged' by the experience.
If you can do that you'll be feeling good after helping someone, you'll feel 'the bomb' as the youth today might say. Or I'm completely showing my age with bad use of words.
So next time you are at the beach and you see donkeys lined up or walking up and down the beach think. Even, if you are lucky enough to be the parent holding the reigns of the donkey that your child is riding, the Stranger that is standing a few feet from you, walking with you, is also walking with their precious load.
