A little boy was spending his Saturday morning playing in his sand box. He had with him his box of cars and trucks, his plastic pail, and a shiny, red plastic shovel. In the process of creating roads and tunnels in the soft sand,
he discovered a large rock in the middle of the sand box! The boy dug around
the rock, managing to dislodge it from the sand. With no little bit of struggle, he pushed and nudged the rock across the sandbox by using his feet.
(He was a very small boy and the rock was very huge.) When the boy got the rock to the edge of the sandbox, however, he found that he couldn't roll it
up
and over the little wall. Determined, the little boy shoved, pushed, and pried,
but every time he had made some progress, the rock tipped and then fell back
into the sand box. The little boy grunted, struggled, pushed, and shoved; but
his only reward was to have the rock roll back, smashing his chubby fingers.
Finally he burst into tears of frustration. All this time the boy's father watched from his living room window as the drama
unfolded. The moment the tears fell, a large shadow fell across the boy and the
sandbox. It was the boy's father. Gently but firmly he said, "Son, why didn't
you use all the strength that you had available?"
Defeated, the boy sobbed back, "But I did Daddy, I did! I used all the strength
that I had!"
"No, son," corrected the father kindly, "you didn't use all the strength you
had. You didn't ask me." With that the father reached down, picked up the rock,
and removed it from the sandbox.
Do you have "rocks" in your life that need to be removed? Are you discovering
that you don't have ALL that it takes to lift them? There is One who is always
available to us and willing to give us all the strength we need.
"When you are DOWN to nothing.... God is UP to something!"
