“Humble yourself, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5: 6-7
“UGHHHHHHHHH” The morning was NOT going as I had planned. A downspout had broken off my gutter and needed to be repaired. Since after High School I had gotten a job installing gutters, the repair was something I already knew how to do. I just needed to stop by the hardware store and pick up an elbow! ‘The job’ was going to be predictably quick and easy. Until it wasn’t!
I own over 1000 pop rivets. ‘Owning’ and ‘having possession of’ are not the same thing! Needing to buy an elbow anyway, I figured I’d cut short my 15 minute search and just buy a small box of rivets too… ‘save time,’ I thought! At the store, I asked the elderly store lady where the elbows were. She simply said. “Follow me!” Then proceeded to walk ALL THE WAY to the BACK of the store. SLOWLY!
Seeing the downspout elbow reminded me that I needed to get some pop rivets, assuming they would be near the elbows I asked, “can you tell me where the pop rivets are? “Sure,” she said. “Follow me.” She then turned and walked to the complete OPPOSITE end of the store… at the same speed! But a SMALL box of white pop rivets was nowhere to be found. I had to buy $10 worth!
Walking back to the middle of the store to the checkout gal, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just wanted to get out of there and get the job DONE! Picking up the elbow the cashier turned to the very nice lady and said, “there’s no price tag on this.” My nice lady guide responded with, “Oh, no problem… I’ll just go check.” Hanging my head in frustration, I started to pray!
Sometimes prayer can be easy. Other times I find it to be quite difficult. This was one of those times. But what was I supposed to pray FOR? Since my REAL attitude was whining, I took up the attitude of surrender, spiritually waving the white flag of defeat. Needing something, I gave up and deferred to the One who supplies EVERYTHING. He then reminded me of ‘THE ONE THING’ I ALWAYS forget!
Conversations with God are always verbal. I usually talk, whine, complain, rejoice, praise, yell and even whisper what I want Him to know – in WORDS! His answers are not with words. They’re more like an instantaneous revelation dropped into my spirit where they gently explode into non messy truth! His Truth to me was simply, “K.C., the job isn’t fixing a downspout elbow. It’s fixing YOU!”
In YOUR crazy, hectic, disrupted life, what is God trying to tell YOU?
