One morning, Mr. Elgin and his wife went over to their son’s home to see their new grandchild. Because it was a workday, their son wasn’t home. So after seeing the baby, leaving his wife and daughter-in-law to visit, Mr. Elgin went outside with the dog.
He found a stick and he and the dog started to play fetch. They were having fun when ... oops! The stick went too far, and Mr. Elgin thought it landed on the roof. Not wanting to leave the stick up there, Mr. Elgin went to get a ladder to get up on the roof and find the stick.
Mr. Elgin set the ladder up against the house. He saw it was about one step short of reaching the roof, but he decided he could trust the tread on his new shoes to take him that last step onto the roof.
Safely on the roof, he looked all around, but — no stick. Now he had to get back off the roof. He noticed that his new shoes were not gripping the roof very well. When he found himself slipping, he realized that his son had recently oiled the cedar shake shingles on the roof! How he wished that he had not taken that one step from the top of the ladder onto the roof!
How easy it had been for Mr. Elgin to take that step onto the roof, and he didn’t expect any problems as he climbed up. Have you ever done something like that without thinking ... perhaps something more serious than a step onto a roof, a step into sin? Sometimes we see a thing we would like to try and we don’t expect any long-term problems, even though we know it’s wrong. We think we can walk away after we try it, and we don’t realize that it is Satan’s trap. He knows that sin can be fun, and who wants to walk away from fun? That first sin leads to another, and then another ... and soon we are on a slippery slope to disaster.
Mr. Elgin sat down, but he kept sliding towards the edge. He pounded on the roof and called to his wife, but since he was on the garage part of the roof, she didn’t hear him. About then, the neighbor drove into his driveway and waved a friendly hello. Mr. Elgin waved back. The neighbor disappeared. No help from him, Mr. Elgin thought. Then he remembered the Bible verse that says, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me” (Psalm 50:1515And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. (Psalm 50:15)). He prayed, “Help me, Lord Jesus.” A thought came to him ... if he could slide over to the corner of the roof where he saw a vent pipe, he could hang on to the pipe until help came. Very carefully he slid over, and he was thankful to find that the seat of his pants wasn’t as slippery on the shingles as his shoes
had been.
Not long after, the neighbor came outside and saw Mr. Elgin still sitting on the roof, hanging onto the pipe. “Do you need help?” the
neighbor called.
“Do I ever!” Mr. Elgin
called back.
The neighbor brought over a long ladder and put it up against the house and helped Mr. Elgin get safely down to the ground. He thanked the helpful neighbor and thanked the Lord for answering his prayer. Then, as he walked around to the front of the house, he found something. There in the front flower bed was the missing stick!
Are you being tempted to take a step into what looks like fun because it seems too good to miss? Turn around now before it’s too late and go instead to the Lord Jesus who loves you and offers you forgiveness for your sins and far more wonderful happiness than this world knows anything about. If you come to Jesus, confessing that you are a sinner and that you need His forgiveness, He will not only forgive your sins, but He will also give you much, much more, including a home in heaven with Him when your life on earth is over.
Messages of God’s Love 12/28/2025