The sky played a cruel trick on me this morning. I looked out the window and saw a grayish, cloudy soup that seemed to promise cooler temperatures and maybe rain—the ultimate air-refresher. But when I walked outside, the skies had cleared and a garish sun was hammering the asphalt. The last couple days have conspired against me to prove what a thin-skinned jerk I am—and today the streak would continue.
In the last 48 hours I’ve been hit twice in the head by thick tree branches and once I backed blindly into a solid wooden beam at mid-skull level. I’ve been nailed in the eye with spattered mud and I stubbed my toe on a concrete slab, striding forward at full speed. At dusk yesterday I was smacked in the side of the face with a basketball.
In each case I’ve responded with sentiments of which SCREW THIS! would be a mild expression. Which brings us back to this morning. Three sweltering, 100 degree days tacked monotonously end to end contribute to the feeling I have that God is trying to make a statement:
Look how little it takes to bring you to the end of your rope.
To which I reply bitterly, “Do you have a point?”
God smiles. And now you’re angry about me pointing this out. Do you have any right to be angry?
I shoot right back: “You better believe I do. I’ve been hit in the back of the head, bashed in the face, baked in the heat. You may as well finish me off now...”
At which point I realize my speech sounds eerily familiar. All right, God. All right. I may as well continue my streak of quoting Old Testament characters and drop a David line—“I am worm and not a man.” I can’t do anything right without embarrassingly massive doses of grace. Put me in a hot day, throw consecutive irritants at me, and I start blowing fuses—each one mere centimeters long. Pull out one slat and my self-sufficiency collapses. I’m a freaking loser.
About this time, God smiles again—infuriatingly.
At this moment, you’re just the man I’ve been looking for.
As with the story of Balaam, if God can use an ass for his purposes, he can certainly use me.
ReplyDeleteCheers.
Heh. Awesome.
ReplyDelete