A few days ago, I made a trip to north Georgia to attend the wedding of one of my nieces.

It was a good trip, but the traveling was not without some complications. As a result of the torrential rains that we had had, there were places where water was completely over the road. One in particular was deep and wide.

We crossed it on Friday with a great deal of uneasiness, but we made it through all right. By the time we got near that same spot on Saturday night on our journey home I hoped the flooded spot would be clear. Not so! It appeared to be as wide as before and I was unsure if it was just a low spot that had collected water or if it was the result of the rising of a nearby creek.

If it was only water that had collected, I knew that I could probably safely assume that it would be no deeper than it was the day before, but if it was from a flooding creek it could be a different matter. To add to the concern, it was late at night and far from town, so the only light was from the few vehicles in the area.

What do you do about a flooded road late at night with your daughter and (more importantly!) your granddaughter on board?

I chose to pull over, let the vehicle behind me go around. At first the driver displayed hesitancy about moving ahead, but then he slowly proceeded forward. I watched carefully to see how far the water came up on his vehicle. Once I was convinced that it was safe, I, too, drove through the flooded roadway and made it safely to the other side and continued toward home.

I cannot say with certainty what I would have done if I had not had an example to follow that night, but I can say with certainty that seeing someone else make it through that challenge kindled my courage to move forward.

Life is indeed a journey filled with obstacles and challenges of various sorts. Not a few of them leave us puzzled as to what our next step should be, but a great deal of courage can be gained when we realize that others have faced similar things and have made it through.

As we face those hard and confusing adventures of life, every detail might not be what we expect to be, but when we face obstacles with faith in God as our guide and the example of others who are trusting Him, the ultimate outcome will always be what God intended.

Having just celebrated Easter and the events preceding it, the recollection of Christ’s example of suffering and sacrifice should still be fresh upon our minds.

We must never forget that He refused to allow anything that was put before Him to distract Him from fulfilling what God sent Him to earth to achieve.

As we trust Him and follow Him as our perfect example, we can live lives, with God’s help and presence within, that others can follow to give them strength to go through the places in life where darkness seems all around and the pathway appears to have been washed away by adversities.

It should always be our goal as followers of Jesus Christ to be able to say with confidence what the apostle Paul stated in I Corinthians 11:1: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (NIV).