The Pebbles in Your Shoes
Song of Solomon 2:15
In our ongoing attempts to establish more regular exercise in
our lives, my wife and I moved into this walking kick at one time,
and we're trying to get back into it now. My wife actually took the
research approach, including reading books on walking, which I wasn't
sure was necessary since I've been walking since I was about a year
old. One of those books was by a man who literally walked across
America. I was hoping that was not one of my wife's goals for our
exercise program. Well, I was intrigued by an observation made by
this super-walker. When someone asked him what the greatest obstacle
was in his long hike across the country, he gave a pretty surprising
answer. He said, "The little pebbles I got in my shoes."
It's interesting that the Bible actually describes our
life-journey with Jesus as a walk. And some of us share with that man
who hiked America the same obstacle in getting to our destination.
In Song of Solomon 2:15, our word for today from the Word of
God, we find an intriguing insight about our life journey. It says,
"Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards,
our vineyards that are in bloom." It's the little foxes that ruin
things; that spoil what could have been a good result. If it's a big
fox, it's easy to shoot it. But it's harder to fight the little foxes
that just nibble away. Sounds like an animal kingdom equivalent of a
hiker's "little pebbles in your shoes."
And we all experience the aggravation of those little pebbles;
the car trouble, the sick child, an inconvenient illness, the
appliance on the blink, the banking problems, the office politics,
those little injustices, or the unexpected expense. The peace of God
is one of a child of God's greatest gifts, but often these little
stresses do more to rob us of that peace than the big crises.
When a major crisis comes, we tend to run to God for His grace.
We know we can't fight a giant by ourselves. But when we run into
those little mini-headaches of everyday life, we often try to handle
those on our own. We fight the big foxes with spiritual weapons and
the little foxes with human weapons.
So we lose, not to huge temptations or overwhelming problems,
but to flat tires and the flu, to bills and bad traffic. Not because
they're so big, but because we don't think to go to Jesus about them.
I'm so glad that Jesus is a sparrow-counting, hair-counting, daily
bread kind of Savior, aren't you? But I need to go to Him with the
small frustrations! We could live much more victoriously if we would
immediately go to Jesus for the grace He's promised us in the
mini-messes - not just the big ones.
Why let those "little foxes" create a negative, angry,
stressed-out you? Turn them over to your Lord who told us He cares
about those things. In 1 Peter 5:7 it says, "Casting all your care on
Him because He cares for you." You'll walk much longer; you'll walk
much lighter if your God is the God of the little pebbles - not just
the big boulders.
Robert Edgar Ammon
<*}}}>< <http://www.holypostage.com/>Holy Postage <*}}}><
<*}}}><<http://www.halfthekingdom.org/>Half the Kingdom!<*}}}><
Prayer for Unborn Life:
O GOD OF LIFE AND LOVE, You have given us the gift to participate
with You to bring new life into the world. But, all too often, the
mother's womb, which should be a nursery of life, becomes instead a
place of it's destruction.
Help us to remove this evil and ensure respect for all life made in
Your image and likeness, called to fulfill its promise on this earth,
and destined to find a home with you for all eternity.
We ask this through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Our God, Our Savior, and Our ALL.
Amen.
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