Miserable.. Pity party alert ! I am miserable.
It has been years since I’ve felt this misery. Oh, aches and pains come and go. The occasional virus finds it’s way into my body and makes me feel icky for a few days. I get down in the dumps about situations. My body gets tired quicker than it used to and I can’t keep up the pace I once could.
But not like this misery…
Have you ever just considered how powerless we really are? Just stop and think about what can stop us right in our tracks….shut us down like flipping off the electricity. I am reminded that I am absolutely at the mercy of God and His universe….and the whims of my own choices.
I chose to weed my flowerbeds. And I chose to put that little ivy twig in the pile to be picked up ( in my bare arms ) and thrown over the ditch out of my yard. I had the knowledge of that evil…(that pretty little green ivy twig only LOOKS pretty). I have the knowledge of the truth..( the little ivy twig is poison).
So…now I am miserable. One touch and I am slowly becoming a mass of whelps that hinder every aspect of my life.
I thought about Job. “If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales! It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas..”(Job 6:2)
I suppose I’m being a little dramatic, but there’s a lesson to be learned here…a lesson far deeper than not handling poison ivy.
When I know the danger and warnings about something…pay attention! Don’t think ‘I can handle this…’. ‘I will be really careful’ ‘Just this once..’
As it is with poison ivy, so it is with all the things God has cautioned us about. ‘..let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with perseverance the race that is marked out for us.’ (Heb. 12:1)
I pray often to be easily taught. I haven’t had a lesson like this in years….and I doubt I’ll soon forget the misery of this itch that I suffer as a result of my own arrogance and poor choices . Who am I to think that I can change the rules of nature?
And who am I to think that I am ever safe outside the boundaries of God’s will for my life? I can’t even handle a little twig of ivy….
