I once read this brain teaser: “A man stands on one side of a river, his dog on the other. The man calls his dog, who immediately crosses the river without getting wet and without using a bridge or a boat. How did the dog do it?” Immediately my mind began the arduous task of trying to figure out how this canine could get across the river without getting wet.

My search for an answer was complicated and seemed like an impossibility. Human logic and the information given me just would not cooperate in finding a solution to the question. Many times in life, and especially in spiritual matters, we face the same riddles. What we often see and hear just doesn’t make sense with what we know.

That’s because we often live in a mental box where we eliminate creative thinking or hypothesis in our intellectual assessment of such a puzzle. The reason why is because we are so afraid to use these options because we don’t want to be found out later as being in error when the facts are revealed. But that is exactly how clues to mysteries are often discovered. Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t know the answer, but I’m going to trust my instincts?”

Let me ask those of you who have been married at least 10 years. Did you ever speculate in the beginning that your marriage and life with your spouse would turn out the way it has? I’m sure you were hoping things would stay as exciting as they were on the honeymoon. But now that you can look back, how close are you to what you were dreaming? Is is better, or is it worse, or have you simply grown accustomed to what it is?

The same is true of our relationship with Christ. When we were first born again, did we ever imagine all the things that have happened to us since then? And if we knew they were coming, would we have been able to predict that we would be what we are today? I wonder? That’s why if we may not know the answer we must believe there is an answer when confronted with enigmas like this brain teaser.

Many times I’ve had to deal with situations for which I had no logical answer. But I knew someone who did, and His name is Jesus. So even though I wasn’t sure how I was going to get from where I was to where I needed to be, or wanted to be, I did know that if I grabbed hold of His hand He would lead me to where He wanted me to be. And that was because He turned my circumstance from a stumbling block into a stepping stone. So not only was my predicament transformed, but so was I. And each time this happened, I learned to trust Him more and more.

By the way, the dog was able to make it to the other side of the river without getting wet because the river was frozen. – Dr. Robert R. Seyda