I had what I thought was a great idea when rearranging my furniture. To save my back, and a bit of time, I piled little things into my office chair on wheels, the things I wasn’t sure about where they’d fit in the new arrangement. However, when I tried to move the chair, it barely budged. I’d added way too much weight to it and had defeated my purpose. Instead of taking the time to move the little things one by one and figuring out where they’d go, I wasted time by piling them up.
It dawned on me – is that my prayer life? Instead of bringing every little thing to God, do I wait until it builds up so much that everything in my life feels burdensome? Have I been making piles, categorizing each situation into three heaps – easy to handle, to hard to handle, will handle later – until each pile becomes too heavy to carry? In picking up a pile of the easy-to-handle-myself things, how much slipped through my arms and dropped back to the floor? The deal-with-it-later pile got stuffed into chair until it too became too much to move.
How often does your reality and your faith seem to be on opposite sides of the room in your life? Are you waiting for God to re-arrange the furniture? Do you wring your hands in prayer and ask for some great sign like a mighty wind to push the two closer together?
If we truly believe God is in control, why do we call out for help only after we have tried to carry it all and failed? We should have carried the little things to the faith side one by one instead of letting them pile up. Instead, we try to move a heavy mass of stuff and whine because we can’t.
Here’s the great thing. Once we make the decision to align our reality with our faith, not vice versa, if doing so is too much for us – the furniture is way to heavy because of all the junk we have piled on it – we can call out to God for help. Most likely, God will slowly take the junk off and help us deal with it so our burden is lighter and easier to move. All He needs is a mustard seed of faith – an effort on our part.
Sometimes the mighty wind is an accumulation of small puffs, each one slowly moving us closer to Him at the pace He knows is best. We’ll suddenly turn a year from now, or five, to see the furniture, the little things and the deal-with-later piles have moved and all the little stuff is in proper perspective on the faith side.
Ah, we smile. God had been there all along, right by our side after all. Everything in our lives has found a place in His arms. But, what will we do with the next thing that comes along? Move it to the faith side, or let it pile up again?
