Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“There is no problem so huge, so widespread, and so difficult to solve…
…that it cannot be run away from.”
Pogo (Walt Kelly)
I don’t know if you’ve ever phrased it quite that way before, but my hunch is that you’ve felt that way before. I don’t have a clue whether or not Pogo’s statement is true. I suppose it may be, or may have been for someone at some time, but as a way of life—well, that may be another story altogether.
In the last few weeks, something like that has crossed my mind a few times. Times where I have found myself envying my little Basset Hound, Lily, asleep on her bed wondering what that would be like. It may be for me that these are just busy times.
There’s a lot going on. Putting together the final pieces for what promises to be a wonderful conference in a few weeks. In other settings, being available to those who are seeking input and help with decisions on a number of matters they are facing. Coordinating plans for new endeavors in the months and years ahead. Finding time to “chit-chat” with my Bride (that’s her term for those moments) without feeling as though there should be some clear reason for our chat, or that there is something to fix. It’s a guy thing and I’m not proud of it.
Busy times may lend themselves to a feeling that you wish you could just get away and hide from it all.
But my sneaking suspicion is that at a number of others times in our lives we’ve come to moments which we didn’t want to face. Moments where we stood ready to throw our hands in the air and run away, refuse to answer the phone or return a phone call, call in sick for the day, crawl under a bed or hide in the nearest closet until enough days have passed so the problem would have to be gone.
Maybe we’ve lost a loved one and don’t know how to go on. Maybe we’ve just lost a job with no prospects on the horizon for a new one. Or perhaps we’ve made yet another mess of a relationship and have no idea how to make amends. Maybe we’ve fallen into one “mud puddle” too many and have gotten to a place where we can’t stand up again for fear of yet one more failure.
Maybe you come to a place in whatever you’re going through where the only options you seem to have left are to quit, to give up, to run and to stop living the life you always thought you were meant to live.
Do yourself a favor—don’t quit, don’t give up, don’t run and don’t stop reaching for the life you know God has always meant for you to live.
Instead, do something else—by rephrasing Pogo’s comment:
“There is no problem so huge, so widespread, and so difficult to solve…
…that God can’t handle it!”
At those moments, which we all will face, take comfort in the words of Peter—the same Peter who denied Christ on three separate occasions and yet Christ was there for him afterward—when Peter said:
“Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5: 7 (NIV)
He can handle whatever busy times you’re trying your best to juggle, whatever disappointments have come your way, and whatever heartaches you’re walking through. Now that is something I know to be true—and in your better moments—I suspect that you do, too.
“There is no problem so huge, so widespread, and so difficult to solve…
…that God can’t handle it!”
Believe it, today, tomorrow and every day…for the rest of your life.
In His Name—Scott
