Our son Hans, living in England with his British wife Katy, has a big family — eight in all. This gives me cause for great joy, because six of them are my grandchildren.

Having all these youngsters, ages nine and under, demands tremendous organization. I’ve been repeatedly thankful that Katy has a knack for keeping their lives in order. That goes for shoes and boots, too.

Since this family lives in north England, rain is plentiful, along with a steady need for boots. They call them “wellies” after Britain’s Wellington boots, popular in the UK since the early 1800’s — for farming, hunting, and, in this case, puddle-jumping. Of course as the children grow, there’s a need for wellies in virtually every size.

Little Jonathan, 15 months old, had just come into his first pair of wellies when I was there recently. Though the boots were still a bit big on him, he wanted to be like his older siblings and wear them out to play.

Every so often, though, his foot would slip half way out of a boot, causing his next step to be a big stumble. An ankle-fold-over was the inevitable result, along with a plunge to the pavement, accompanied by some level of damage – skinned forehead, chin, cheek, or nose, and sometimes all of them. This was especially true when he was trying to walk his wellies on bumpy pavement.

His wobbly walking reminded me of the Bible verse that says if we fully trust in God’s wisdom rather than our own, he’ll make our paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6) But it also reminded me of another verse that says the Lord can keep us from stumbling.

Being new on his feet and new in his wellies, Jonathan sometimes did more stumbling than walking, suffering injuries and the tears that went with them.

How nice for us to know that if we do things God’s way, we won’t have to stumble through life but can walk on the straight path he promises to make for us. That’s not to say we won’t experience hardship, but we won’t have to suffer self-inflicted injuries or the tears that accompany them when we stumble spiritually, falling away from God’s straight path.

It won’t take long for Jonathan to grow into his wellies, and if we’re smart, we’ll waste no time letting God have his way in our lives. After that, our stumbling and the tears that come with it will be kept to a minimum.

“To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy… be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord…” (Jude 1:24-25)