They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. Well sometimes, a picture leaves you speechless. That was the case this morning when my eyes caught a picture. The picture was not meant to be shown, but for just a few seconds I saw it – sweet, precious, heartbreaking. I think God Himself kept my eyes dry until I was on 79 driving home.
However, the significance of those few seconds was not in the emotion the picture invoked, but in the message God was speaking to me through it. His message was not new, or even shocking. I had been in this place before. God was saying “Raquel, you have lost focus. You’re priorities are all messed up.”
The thing is, I know what Godly priorities are, but for the past three weeks I have not lived it. My life has been absolutely consumed with only two things: work and school.
The issue is not in the hours spent. I rarely work more than 40 hours a week. My homework is insane and it does feel like if I am not working or sleeping I am doing schoolwork – but I am sure that is just how it feels. I mean, my parents stopped by last night for about an hour and I did sit on the couch and chat with them.
But for the last three weeks my brain has had room for only work and school. It seems I only have the mental energy for those two things and if I am not thinking of one of them, my brain is fried like a dead cell phone battery. Ashamedly, I have spent no quality time with the Lord – only quick prayers here and there. As I look at my desk, I see papers from my business management project covering the desk. Way in the back, buried under schoolwork, sits my Bible – untouched in three weeks. The only Scripture I have read has been in the daily devotional that my co-workers husband emails each day. Then I wonder why it takes such effort to engage in worship on Sunday morning. I wonder why the words of the sermon feel like droplets of water on desert ground. It’s because they are.
How did I get like this? Especially when I know better. When I thought about it, the sin nature in me wanted to immediately blame something or someone else. I didn’t have a particular person in mind. I didn’t even think about the company I work for. I thought about society as a whole and I was tempted to place the blame there.
I thought back to 1998 – the year I got my first office job. I went to a temp agency and they placed me at an investment firm called H.L. Zeve Associates. It was a small firm with three owners, an executive assistant, and four “assistant portfolio managers”, including me. I worked there for 5 years. I was a good worker – evidenced by the fact that my leaving salary was $10,000 higher than my starting salary. In that particular company, the hours were 8-4, still with an hour for lunch. Each day, for five years, I came in around 7:45 and left at 4. So did everyone else, including the owners. But what I remember about those days is… my brain did not think about work from 4:05pm until 7:45 am the next day. It was not even on my radar. It was the same for everyone else. The owners did other things. One coached wrestling at a local high school and was required to be at the high school at 4:30 every day. The other owner coached some other sport. Both owners had five kids. They didn’t just put food on their family’s tables, they were physically present with their families to eat it with them each evening. Back then, that was the norm. I know I sound like I am a senior citizen when I say “back then” but it is true. It is even evident in the music of that time period. Remember the song “Nine to Five”? How about “Morning Train’? That song says that the woman’s husband took a morning train, worked from nine to five and took another home to find her waiting for him. There is another song called “Home Fires Burning”. Some male country singer (and I only know because my folks listened to it) sang these lyrics: “the boss tells me I am late again, he can’t stand it when I only grin. He’s got me 8 hours – she’s got me after that. And I can’t wait till quittin time cause she keeps the home fires burning….”
Those days are gone. In my last company, everyone left “when the work was done”. I remember a woman who got hired there at the same time I did. She was returning to the working force now that her youngest daughter was in school full time. Her husband had his own business. He was able to be there when the kids got off the school bus, but he needed his wife home by 6 so that he could meet with his clients. Her husband and children suffered when she couldn’t get home on time. One day she told the boss that it was not working out for her. She said she didn’t mind working late or putting in extra time, but when she left her house in the morning she had to know the exact time she would return. She couldn’t find out at 4 that she could not leave at 5. Long story short – she doesn’t work there anymore. After I had been there several years, they hired a new financial advisor. This guy was awesome. He had been in the World Trade Center on 9/11. He moved away from New York to be able to prioritize his family. He left the office between 5-6 each day, but after a month he told me that even though he was physically at home with his family, he wasn’t mentally with them. Work had taken so much from him mentally that he had nothing to left to give to anything or anyone else. He said all he could do was veg in front of the tv and he was snippy with his wife and kids. This man, who I admire greatly, left the firm and started his own company.
That guy’s story is the norm these days. Even if you only work 40 hours, work seems to zap all your energy. Work gets the best – everything else gets the rest. People will say “well, that is just how it is” or “if that is what it takes to get the work done, then that is what it takes”. They may even kick up how much money one is getting paid. Newsflash folks – the people at my first company made six figures. The non-owners made high five figures. They ran a successful, profitable business that gave impeccable client service – and they did it in a 40 hour week with no mental overload. Those folks are all retired now – and sold the business. I recently spoke with one of those guys. I called Steve to see how he and his now grown children were doing. We talked about society and I asked him how he managed to be a successful business man and a good Christian, husband, and father. He said to me: “Raquel, each business has “busy seasons”. For instance accountants are busy in April and may need some overtime. But if you consistently have to work 50 + hours a week to get the work done, you are either mismanaged, understaffed, or you don’t work efficiently enough or your business unit as a whole is not efficient and does not have good time management skills”. I agree Steve. Many businesses, including churches, will have 2-3 hours meetings to discuss something that could be decided in 10 minutes, and then they wonder why people are still at their desks at 6:30pm.
Let me clarify something. I am not saying that we should never put in extra time at work. When I was about 3 years into my 5 years at my first job, one of my co-workers had a major surgery and was out for two months. I did half of her job and mine which meant 10 hour days and half Saturdays. It was temporary – not a lifestyle. But sometimes when folks hear me talk about society, they think I am advocating being a clock watcher. Like “oops, its 5:02, I can’t be at work”. I have never been that way nor do I feel that it’s right.
But just like in the Garden of Eden, the enemy is a deceiver. He is known for taking a Biblical principle and twisting it slightly or taking it too far. See the Bible says to work as if you are working for God and not for man. (Colossian 3:23). That means when a Christian goes to work, he is supposed to do his absolute best and work as unto the Lord.
Today, we have taken that concept too far and we have gone from working as unto the Lord – to working as if it’s our Lord.
Well – that was a long rant. And not even the point of this blog post. But these are the things I was rehearsing in my head when God told me my priorities are whacked out. I wanted to blame society and say “well that is just the world I live in”. It is the world I live in, but we heard the Scripture today… Romans 12:2 – “Do not conform to the pattern of this world…”
So when that blame game didn’t work, I started to harp on school. School is a source of regret and resentment for me. I regret that I did not go to college after high school and I resent that I have to go now. When I graduate (the day before I enter the nursing home), I will have taken approximately 40 classes – only 8 of them will actually help me in my field. This is nothing but a $70,000 line on my resume. It’s also a blow to my pride because I am unable to make the straight As I made in high school. However, God has shown me time and time again that this is His will for me right now.
Obviously, neither work nor school is my problem. I am my problem. I allow work and school to take all of my mental energy. I get caught in this cycle. When my energy is zapped, I get cranky. When I get cranky, I sleep more. When I sleep more, I don’t spend time with the Lord. When I don’t spend time with the Lord, I starve spiritually which makes me more cranky. It also makes me lose focus.
This morning, that quick glance at a picture caused me to refocus. I remembered a sermon I heard several years ago. The preacher said: “in this life, there are only two things that really matter – your relationship with God, and your relationships with others. Because they are the only things that are eternal.” I realized that every thing that has taken my time, energy and focus in these past few weeks are meaningless in the view of eternity. When I stand before God, He won’t ask me about my business management project. He won’t ask me if my spreadsheets were done on time. He will ask about my relationship with Jesus and my relationships with the people He put in my life.
Needless to say that does not mean I shouldn’t go to work. I still have bills to pay. I can’t call off work tomorrow because I am focusing on relationships. And I still have to go to school and do this project for class. But I can’t allow those things to consume me nor take first priority.
So I began to contemplate how to do this. Its one thing to know I need to do something, it’s another thing to actually do it. I realized that I actually have a wonderful example. I have a coworker on my team who is a Christian. Her husband also works for our company, but in a different division. They have a 1 year old daughter. My co-worker is very good at her job. Very good at it. But if I look at her life this is what I see. She is a Christian, a wife, a mother, and a business analyst – IN THAT ORDER. She gives work her best during work hours, but when the clock says her time belongs to her husband and daughter, that is where her time goes. She will check back in with work when she needs to, like she did with me last Friday, but her priorities are straight and her life more peaceful than mine. The funny thing is… I am not a wife, nor a mother. All I have to do is put the Christian before the business analyst and student. This cannot be that hard. LOL.
So it’s Sunday evening. A new week and a new chance is quickly approaching. My short term goal is to get up early each morning and spend quality time with the Lord. Even if I have to sleep on the couch to ensure I don’t oversleep – I need to put the Lord first each morning. I need to read the Word – even if I am behind in reading my textbook. Then, I want to go through my day with my focus on Him and the people in my life, even if I have to spend in my day in Microsoft Excel. My long term goal is to get back into a small group or the Beth Moore ladies Bible study – even if its means I earn a C in all my college classes. I think I would rather graduate a C student then graduate with high honors at the expense of what is really important.
What’s really important. I’ve known all along, but I lost focus. Thankfully, the Lord got my attention – with a picture worth way more than a thousand words.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
There Is Still Garbage on the Front Steps
The blog is going to confuse most folks. While still keeping to the theme of my blog, lessons learned along the way, I am going to write this one a little differently. I am going to write an analogy – almost an allegory, but not quite. When I was young, when I had a hard time understanding something, my mom would make an analogy to something I did understand. It worked well in my childhood and still does. I think that is why God sometimes uses it to help me see things clearly.
This past week was not one of my favorites. It happens. Some days (or weeks) are better than others. When I went to bed on Friday night, I could not see the forest for the trees. I had no idea what happened, what went wrong, what I did wrong… I was just lost. So I prayed that the Lord would show me His viewpoint. Shortly afterwards I fell asleep. Saturday morning I woke up and before I was even alert enough to think, this analogy came to me:
My apartment is one of four apartments in an old duplex house. The house has two first floor apartments and two second floor apartments. Each resident has their own private entrance, but the two people (including myself) who live on the second floor have a door that opens to a flight of stairs that then leads into our apartments.
To be clear – the story I am about to share is fictional.
So once upon a time, (lol) I come home one day to find that someone put their garbage in my stairwell. Strange. Why would someone do that? But it was only a little bit of garbage and I didn’t know who did it so I clean it up and walked up to my apartment. As the days went on, each day there was more and more garbage being piled in my stairwell. So I called my landlord. He said he would look into it. Within a few hours I had a sign on my door telling folks not to dump their garbage in my stairwell. It worked for awhile, but then the garbage began to pile up again. One day, I caught a few people in the act. It was the neighbors. Two different neighbors, one two houses down and one from across the street, were dumping their garbage in my stairwell. Additionally, they were dumping garbage in the stairwell of the other second floor apartment.
So obviously I went over to talk to these neighbors. I spoke kindly and asked them to please not do that anymore. They are kind in return and agree to stop. The next day, I came home to more garbage. The garbage is piled higher and higher and I can no longer to get to my apartment.
I call my landlord. He says – use the back door and back steps. Now my building does have a back door with a back stairwell, but it’s cumbersome. Tiny, narrow, winding steps – hard to navigate especially while carrying things. But it’s a way to get to my apartment. So I use the back door and successfully enter my apartment. But don’t I still have a problem? Even though I got to my apartment, there is garbage on my steps. It doesn’t belong there.
After I complain to the landlord again, he decides to bring a team of highly skilled workers to make the back steps less cumbersome. In just over a month, the back stairs are fast and comfortable and easy to navigate. I am grateful to my landlord and his skilled team. In the ease of climbing the back steps and in my gratitude, the garbage may not be my first thought – but there is still garbage on my steps.
The problem continues. One day, I come home to find the tenant from the other second floor apartment, cleaning his stairwell and throwing some of that garbage on to the pile in my stairwell. I spoke very sternly to him and said “I will not tolerate you throwing your garbage on my stairwell”. He snaps back. Shortly after that, my phone rings and it’s the landlord. He tells me I was too abrasive with my fellow tenant and I should be empathetic because every single day the man spends the first two hours of his evening cleaning his stairwell from all the garbage being piled there. Really? I told my landlord that the man has a choice. He chooses to spend 2 hours cleaning the stairwell rather than taking the back steps. The landlord replies, that it is his business. At this point, I am thoroughly confused. It is the man’s choice to clean the stairwell or use the back steps, but it becomes my business the moment he puts garbage in my stairwell.
So the landlord decides to make some changes. Instead of the easier to navigate back steps, the landlord decides to build me my own personal elevator. This elevator will operate at lightning speed. It will be heated in the winter and air conditioned in the summer. I will even have my own elevator operator that will help me carry my bags from the car to my door. That is wonderful. So kind of my landlord to do all that for me. See, even when we disagree, I do believe my landlord is a kind and caring individual that truly wants the best for his tenants.
But have we lost sight of something…. THERE IS STILL GARBAGE ON THE FRONT STEPS!!! By now the garbage is piled so high and bugs, animals and rodents have come. I am enjoying all the comforts of my new elevator and doorman – and man, I truly love them. But even while I sleep, I can hear the rodents scampering on the garbage on the steps.
This ends my fictitious story and the analogy God gave me on Saturday morning.
But the purpose was not for wild storytelling. This blog is about lessons learned. So I ask the Lord to show me through this analogy where I have done wrong, where others have done wrong, and what to do about it (and what not to do).
So let’s analyze this. What did I do wrong? How many of you were thinking way before I ended the story “why didn’t you call the police?”. Where I went wrong was I kept calling the landlord. The landlord did everything in his power to make my life easier, but he could not stop the neighbors because they are not his tenants. The police may be able to stop the neighbors from dumping garbage. But I am not sure, I am new to this area of town and I do not personally know how the police operate. I grew up in a town where the police were useless. My mentee lives in a town where the police are useless. So what does one do when police can’t make a wrong right? The next step is the magistrate. (I hear folks saying “duh”) Now the magistrate is not easy. It’s more than a phone call. It costs something. It costs time and money and stress and even possibly unwanted grief and publicity.
So what would you do? Would you pay the cost of the magistrate to eradicate the wrongdoing? Unfortunately, I know what many people would do. They would move.
And I truly believe it is that mentally that grieves the heart of God.
Because see, the reality is… if I move – wrong wins. If I move, I wave a while flag and run from the problem instead of fixing the problem. I may give up my elevator and doorman to live in a garbage free area, but the truth is – whether I am there or not – THERE IS STILL GARBAGE ON THE FRONT STEPS! And while that garbage may no longer affect me, it still affects others. And the stench has gone beyond the stairwell and is now overflowing into the street. The residents just say “it is what it is” and they adapt and live with the stench. Good either flees or becomes complacent and lives with it – and wrong wins.
I have seen this time and time again in many different ways. When I was a teenager, my mom had a stroke – her second one actually. While she was in the hospital, the nurses treated her poorly and did not properly attend to her. My dad kept trying to reason with them and ask them to do what my mom needed done, and each time they were nice and polite and promised to do their jobs – but they never did. One day I nearly flipped out – I started to leave the room to go speak abrasively to these nurses because obviously kindness didn’t work. My dad stopped me. He told me that if I flipped on them, they would treat my mom even worse when we weren’t there. He may have been right. So I did nothing. But once my mom was moved into rehab in another section of the hospital, my dad did nothing about those nurses – because it no longer affected his wife. Because my dad did nothing, how many other patients were mistreated? My dad was only concerned with his family but… THERE WAS STILL GARBAGE ON THE FRONT STEPS. And others suffered because my dad didn’t fight. Wrong won. Right lost.
My mentee lives in “bad” part of Pittsburgh. High crime rate – shootings almost every day. But it wasn’t always like that. It began as a good community. But when bad stuff first began to occur, the good got scared or fed up and left for greener pastures. Wrong won, Right lost. Today, when I hear people talk about that community or similar places and I hear them say “I am scared to go there”. My response is “well, what are doing about it?”. They usually look at me like I am nuts and say “well I just don’t go there”. Whether or not I speak my response my answer is the same – “then you are part of the problem”. By avoiding that area, you are saying that as long as it doesn’t affect you, then you don’t need to worry about it. You are actually handing the enemy a victory. He got the territory. He won. We have all heard that quote from Edmund Burke: “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” That statement hold true no matter the severity of the wrong. From human atrocities like the Holocaust, to everyday occurrences like bullying on the schoolyard, wrong will win unless right stops it.
Lastly, but most importantly, I need to emphasize the importance of prayer. Now, I don’t mean it in the cop out way. Some folks will go the route of saying that we should just pray that God will deal with the garbage on the steps. Ultimately, He will. When we hear the sound of the trumpet, God will make all things right. But in the meantime, He has told us that we are His hands and feet. Where prayer is absolutely crucial is in that we need His guidance, wisdom, and protection. If I had been in better communication with Him last week, I might have heard him nudge me and say “the landlord can’t help – call the police.” Or He might have said “do nothing right now, wait until I say so and then take these steps.” If I would have talked to Him more often, He probably would have given me peace. Not a peace that says “the garbage is okay”, but a peace that would keep me calm while seeking wisdom on how to fight the garbage. But I know what God would not have told me. He would not tell me to accept the garbage and He would not tell me to move and make the garbage someone else’s problem.
So as a new week begins, I am calm. I am not angry or stressed – not even at the neighbors who keep throwing garbage on my stairs. I am not angry, but I also refuse to accept it. It is my goal to stay in close communication with the Lord. My prayer is that I see things through His eyes, ask Him for wisdom and direction, and try to live like Jesus would – knowing that Jesus is the Lion and the Lamb, so I must know when to baaaa and when to roar.
This past week was not one of my favorites. It happens. Some days (or weeks) are better than others. When I went to bed on Friday night, I could not see the forest for the trees. I had no idea what happened, what went wrong, what I did wrong… I was just lost. So I prayed that the Lord would show me His viewpoint. Shortly afterwards I fell asleep. Saturday morning I woke up and before I was even alert enough to think, this analogy came to me:
My apartment is one of four apartments in an old duplex house. The house has two first floor apartments and two second floor apartments. Each resident has their own private entrance, but the two people (including myself) who live on the second floor have a door that opens to a flight of stairs that then leads into our apartments.
To be clear – the story I am about to share is fictional.
So once upon a time, (lol) I come home one day to find that someone put their garbage in my stairwell. Strange. Why would someone do that? But it was only a little bit of garbage and I didn’t know who did it so I clean it up and walked up to my apartment. As the days went on, each day there was more and more garbage being piled in my stairwell. So I called my landlord. He said he would look into it. Within a few hours I had a sign on my door telling folks not to dump their garbage in my stairwell. It worked for awhile, but then the garbage began to pile up again. One day, I caught a few people in the act. It was the neighbors. Two different neighbors, one two houses down and one from across the street, were dumping their garbage in my stairwell. Additionally, they were dumping garbage in the stairwell of the other second floor apartment.
So obviously I went over to talk to these neighbors. I spoke kindly and asked them to please not do that anymore. They are kind in return and agree to stop. The next day, I came home to more garbage. The garbage is piled higher and higher and I can no longer to get to my apartment.
I call my landlord. He says – use the back door and back steps. Now my building does have a back door with a back stairwell, but it’s cumbersome. Tiny, narrow, winding steps – hard to navigate especially while carrying things. But it’s a way to get to my apartment. So I use the back door and successfully enter my apartment. But don’t I still have a problem? Even though I got to my apartment, there is garbage on my steps. It doesn’t belong there.
After I complain to the landlord again, he decides to bring a team of highly skilled workers to make the back steps less cumbersome. In just over a month, the back stairs are fast and comfortable and easy to navigate. I am grateful to my landlord and his skilled team. In the ease of climbing the back steps and in my gratitude, the garbage may not be my first thought – but there is still garbage on my steps.
The problem continues. One day, I come home to find the tenant from the other second floor apartment, cleaning his stairwell and throwing some of that garbage on to the pile in my stairwell. I spoke very sternly to him and said “I will not tolerate you throwing your garbage on my stairwell”. He snaps back. Shortly after that, my phone rings and it’s the landlord. He tells me I was too abrasive with my fellow tenant and I should be empathetic because every single day the man spends the first two hours of his evening cleaning his stairwell from all the garbage being piled there. Really? I told my landlord that the man has a choice. He chooses to spend 2 hours cleaning the stairwell rather than taking the back steps. The landlord replies, that it is his business. At this point, I am thoroughly confused. It is the man’s choice to clean the stairwell or use the back steps, but it becomes my business the moment he puts garbage in my stairwell.
So the landlord decides to make some changes. Instead of the easier to navigate back steps, the landlord decides to build me my own personal elevator. This elevator will operate at lightning speed. It will be heated in the winter and air conditioned in the summer. I will even have my own elevator operator that will help me carry my bags from the car to my door. That is wonderful. So kind of my landlord to do all that for me. See, even when we disagree, I do believe my landlord is a kind and caring individual that truly wants the best for his tenants.
But have we lost sight of something…. THERE IS STILL GARBAGE ON THE FRONT STEPS!!! By now the garbage is piled so high and bugs, animals and rodents have come. I am enjoying all the comforts of my new elevator and doorman – and man, I truly love them. But even while I sleep, I can hear the rodents scampering on the garbage on the steps.
This ends my fictitious story and the analogy God gave me on Saturday morning.
But the purpose was not for wild storytelling. This blog is about lessons learned. So I ask the Lord to show me through this analogy where I have done wrong, where others have done wrong, and what to do about it (and what not to do).
So let’s analyze this. What did I do wrong? How many of you were thinking way before I ended the story “why didn’t you call the police?”. Where I went wrong was I kept calling the landlord. The landlord did everything in his power to make my life easier, but he could not stop the neighbors because they are not his tenants. The police may be able to stop the neighbors from dumping garbage. But I am not sure, I am new to this area of town and I do not personally know how the police operate. I grew up in a town where the police were useless. My mentee lives in a town where the police are useless. So what does one do when police can’t make a wrong right? The next step is the magistrate. (I hear folks saying “duh”) Now the magistrate is not easy. It’s more than a phone call. It costs something. It costs time and money and stress and even possibly unwanted grief and publicity.
So what would you do? Would you pay the cost of the magistrate to eradicate the wrongdoing? Unfortunately, I know what many people would do. They would move.
And I truly believe it is that mentally that grieves the heart of God.
Because see, the reality is… if I move – wrong wins. If I move, I wave a while flag and run from the problem instead of fixing the problem. I may give up my elevator and doorman to live in a garbage free area, but the truth is – whether I am there or not – THERE IS STILL GARBAGE ON THE FRONT STEPS! And while that garbage may no longer affect me, it still affects others. And the stench has gone beyond the stairwell and is now overflowing into the street. The residents just say “it is what it is” and they adapt and live with the stench. Good either flees or becomes complacent and lives with it – and wrong wins.
I have seen this time and time again in many different ways. When I was a teenager, my mom had a stroke – her second one actually. While she was in the hospital, the nurses treated her poorly and did not properly attend to her. My dad kept trying to reason with them and ask them to do what my mom needed done, and each time they were nice and polite and promised to do their jobs – but they never did. One day I nearly flipped out – I started to leave the room to go speak abrasively to these nurses because obviously kindness didn’t work. My dad stopped me. He told me that if I flipped on them, they would treat my mom even worse when we weren’t there. He may have been right. So I did nothing. But once my mom was moved into rehab in another section of the hospital, my dad did nothing about those nurses – because it no longer affected his wife. Because my dad did nothing, how many other patients were mistreated? My dad was only concerned with his family but… THERE WAS STILL GARBAGE ON THE FRONT STEPS. And others suffered because my dad didn’t fight. Wrong won. Right lost.
My mentee lives in “bad” part of Pittsburgh. High crime rate – shootings almost every day. But it wasn’t always like that. It began as a good community. But when bad stuff first began to occur, the good got scared or fed up and left for greener pastures. Wrong won, Right lost. Today, when I hear people talk about that community or similar places and I hear them say “I am scared to go there”. My response is “well, what are doing about it?”. They usually look at me like I am nuts and say “well I just don’t go there”. Whether or not I speak my response my answer is the same – “then you are part of the problem”. By avoiding that area, you are saying that as long as it doesn’t affect you, then you don’t need to worry about it. You are actually handing the enemy a victory. He got the territory. He won. We have all heard that quote from Edmund Burke: “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” That statement hold true no matter the severity of the wrong. From human atrocities like the Holocaust, to everyday occurrences like bullying on the schoolyard, wrong will win unless right stops it.
Lastly, but most importantly, I need to emphasize the importance of prayer. Now, I don’t mean it in the cop out way. Some folks will go the route of saying that we should just pray that God will deal with the garbage on the steps. Ultimately, He will. When we hear the sound of the trumpet, God will make all things right. But in the meantime, He has told us that we are His hands and feet. Where prayer is absolutely crucial is in that we need His guidance, wisdom, and protection. If I had been in better communication with Him last week, I might have heard him nudge me and say “the landlord can’t help – call the police.” Or He might have said “do nothing right now, wait until I say so and then take these steps.” If I would have talked to Him more often, He probably would have given me peace. Not a peace that says “the garbage is okay”, but a peace that would keep me calm while seeking wisdom on how to fight the garbage. But I know what God would not have told me. He would not tell me to accept the garbage and He would not tell me to move and make the garbage someone else’s problem.
So as a new week begins, I am calm. I am not angry or stressed – not even at the neighbors who keep throwing garbage on my stairs. I am not angry, but I also refuse to accept it. It is my goal to stay in close communication with the Lord. My prayer is that I see things through His eyes, ask Him for wisdom and direction, and try to live like Jesus would – knowing that Jesus is the Lion and the Lamb, so I must know when to baaaa and when to roar.
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