Avoiding The Trouble Spots

In her beautiful novel about Maine, "The Country of the Pointed Firs", Sara Orne Jewett describes the ascent of a woman writer on the pathway leading to the home of a retired sea captain named Elijah Tilley.
On the way, the woman notes a number of wooden stakes randomly scattered about the property, with no discernible order. Each is painted white and trimmed in yellow, like the captain's house. Curious, she asks Captain Tilley what they mean. When he first ploughed the ground, he says, his plough snagged on many large rocks just beneath the surface. So he set out the stakes where the rocks lay in order to avoid them in the future.
In a sense, this is what God has done with the Ten Commandments... He has said, "These are the trouble spots in life. Avoid these, and you won't snag your plough."

- John Killinger in "To My People with Love"