The former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, was one of the great preachers of the 20th century and an extremely gifted storyteller. One of his favorites involved an experience that he remembered from his son’s childhood. The two of them used to enjoy taking early morning walks together—especially on those cold, winter days when the world slept beneath soft blankets of snow.

As they made their way through the neighboring fields and pastures behind the parsonage, the small child would cling to Temple’s little finger in order to steady himself. However, when the lad accidentally stumbled, his grip would fail and down he’d fall into the snow. After getting up and brushing himself off, their journey would resume, the youngster being sure this time to take a tighter hold of his father’s finger.

Needless to say, such spills occurred quite often. And yet, because he was busy thinking of other things, Temple never paid much attention to them. On one occasion, though, his son looked up with quiet, questioning eyes and whispered, “Daddy, may I ask you something?”

“Sure, son, what’s troubling you?”

“Well, I was just wondering, maybe if you held my hand instead of my holding your finger, I wouldn’t fall as much.”

“It was a wonderful lesson about life,” Temple later concluded. “Sometimes, instead of our trying to take hold of God, we simply need to let God take hold of us.”

It reminds me of a poem I heard years ago called “Broken Dreams”—

As children bring their broken toys, with tears for us to mend;
I brought my broken dreams to God, because God was my friend.

But instead of leaving God in peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help with ways that were my own.

At last I snatched them back and cried, “How can you be so slow?”
“My child,” said God, “what could I do? You never did let go.”