Man's Mistakes Rectified by God

H. W. Beecher.

Romans 8:28

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

I sometimes think of it as of a child sitting in a boat. The child does not know the coast, and it very little understands how to row. If the child were left to itself, pulling upon the oars, its right hand being a little stronger than the other, it would be all the time veering the boat to the right, and the boat would be constantly turning round and round. The child would, perhaps, make its way out of the harbour and into the ocean, and be carried away and lost, if there were no guiding power in the boat but its own. But there in the stern sits the father. The uneven strokes of the child would carry the boat this way or that out of its course; but the steady hand of the father overcomes those uneven strokes; and all the mistakes with the oars are rectified by the rudder, and the boat keeps its right course. So that the force exerted by the child, though misdirected, all works for good when the father guides.




(H. W. Beecher.)