Chasing Squirrels

 

While walking with one of our daughters in her Memphis neighborhood, her dog Loretta was suddenly attracted by a squirrel running towards a nearby tree.  The leash tightened, but instead of just fiercely pulling the dog back and shouting “No!”, our daughter very calmly said, “Leave it.”  Loretta looked at her prey for a moment more, but then just walked on down the sidewalk.  The situation was turned around not by a harsh command, or even by physical restraint, but by what they had practiced on many such daily walks around the block. 

Leave it.  Loretta immediately knew what to do, because she had been taught and trained how to respond.   She possessed a tool in her toolbox for such a situation as this.

We have no idea what is coming across our path.

We too are distracted by curiosities of all shapes and sizes, fascinating things that promise what they cannot fulfill.  It’s not God’s lack of guidance, nor familiarity, nor the scale of difficulty that throws us off, but the strong scents of comfort, power, desire, and the momentary happiness of chasing an elusive and sometimes imaginary squirrel through the neighborhood.

God does not scream “STOP!” for no good reason.  He whispers, “Leave it.  There is so much more that I can give you.”

Our problem is that we try to do life alone, as if there is no God at all, or that what He says makes no difference.  “That thing over there will make you happy,” the adversary promised Eve and continues to promise us.

We forget the brokenness of the past, and the impossible thickets we have tried to navigate on our own, even while carrying the back-breaking weight of unwieldy, self-multiplying burdens.  Our memory tries to minimize the heart-ache so we can justify this present squirrel-chase.  We no longer call it a “temptation” when we really want it that bad.  Excuses and justifications come in multi-packs at Costco.  Always available, always way more than we will ever use.

What do we need to leave and keep on walking? How is God trying to guide us in this situation?  Are we listening to Him or to our own excuses?  What are we practicing in our little everyday choices?  Turn off that show, close that book right in the middle of a sentence, don’t even look at that website, navigate a viral relationship in a gracious and unexpected way, wear something different, decide ahead of time how to respond and not react, and make choices that change our trajectory.

If we are Christ-followers, nothing can remain the same.

What do we need to leave, lay down, pick up, hold tight, and run with?  We have no idea the consequences of sprinting after that squirrel, and then next week, something even more evasive in heavy traffic.

But perhaps even more, what do we need to cover in prayer and leave it?  Not abandoning deep concerns on the gravelly side of the road, but leaving it in our Father’s hands and designs.  Cover it in prayer, not suffocate it with increasing layers of angst.  Anxiety is not a form of praying.  Worry never makes things better.

Are we trying to take on something that is not ours to solve or control?  Are we avoiding what we do need to do?  Are we trying to hold tight in our arms, or on a leash, our pet desires and our favorite beloved anxieties?  Or are we trusting what God says in His Word:

For My thoughts are not Your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55. 8-9

Saturate it in prayer.  But then, leave it.  Give God some elbow room and see what He does with it.  Look for God’s redeeming work, aware when He motions us to step in, and when to leave it with Him in His goodness and in His timing. Even if we don’t understand.  Even when we think we know better than God.

The way we learn to walk with God around the block on an ordinary morning profoundly impacts how we will walk a year from now, twenty years from now, how we will finish our course, and what we leave behind as a legacy or witness for those around us…. and even for those yet unborn.

Prayer does not put us into control.  Praying helps us realize God is God, and we are not.  Prayer puts God in His rightful place.  And allows us to acknowledge and recognize that reality.

Prayer empowers us to live that way.  Every moment of praying prepares us for the next spin around the block.  Not just avoiding the potholes or ignoring those enticing squirrels or scents, but responding to His amazing trajectory for our lives of which we are not aware

Praying is how we get there.  Daily, even moment by moment, God aligns our hearts with His.  God helps us practice not impersonal “do this” behaviors, but how to “be His” in our walk with Him.  No leash needed.  Just loving Him.

And listening to God whisper, “Leave it.  I’ve got something far better for you.  Trust Me.”

The Bulky, Scary, and Too Much to Carry

 

Last year, it was my privilege to meet the school bus on Tuesday afternoons and greet four of our elementary-age grandchildren.  One of our then first-graders would always beg for me to carry his backpack home from the bus stop.  And every week, I took the backpack and replied, “What do you have in here?  Bricks?”

After snacks, I always asked about homework, and this little one would say, “I don’t think I have any.”

“Let’s take a look.”  I lifted his stuffed heavy backpack to the kitchen table and looked inside. One item at a time, layer by layer, I began spreading out the contents, the treasured collections of a curious little boy.   Crumpled worksheets already graded, his school-supplied Chromebook, a partially eaten lunch undated, an empty metal water bottle, several library books (“I was wondering where those were,” he chuckled), notices about past school events, a couple beloved small stuffed animals, a wrinkled t-shirt, dirty socks, his jacket that had been lost, and at the bottom, well, there was his new list of spelling words for the week and a practice sheet for subtraction. 

It was all spread out on the table.  The bulky, the scary, and the too much to carry.   

One of the ways the Old Testament talks about praying is spreading out our personal stuff before the LORD -- the good, the bad and the ugly. 

Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it, and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.  And Hezekiah prayed… Isaiah 37. 14-15

Like Hezekiah in the midst of panic-inducing turmoil, praying is our first response, not last resort.

Not laying before God our pre-conceived answers or carefully manipulated outcomes, but coming with hands spread out and open to receive what God lays before us.  Spreading out, clearing out, handing off our griefs, fears, and anxieties, and trusting Him instead. 

What does prayer have to do with all this?  Everything. A literal come-to-Jesus moment.

Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest….For My yoke is easy, and My burden in light.  Matthew 11. 28, 30

The tipping point, when we are so burdened and overwhelmed, is asking God for help, not shirking our responsibilities, but unloading twenty pounds of unnecessary rocks of anxiety in our backpacks that God never intended us to drag along in the first place.

We spread out before Him what appears as heavy baggage we have to carry, wounds still unhealed from the past, favorite grudges we just can’t let go, and even irritations, like pebbles in our shoes, the unseen, distracting, and the hurtful.  Spreading out allows God to reveal what is real and what is not, what is essential, and what is just toxic junk handicapping our hearts. 

When we pray and open up our hearts before God, the things that defeat us are not so insurmountable at all. Worries and frightful things are revealed to be as they are, imaginary dragons that occupy way too much brain space, clog up our emotions, take up a demanding residence for us to care for fulltime, and push us to our limits.

It’s easy to see what others need to deal with.  But we all have stuff in our heavy-laden backpacks that needs to be prayed through.  What do we need to spread out before the Lord?  The busy details of this overscheduled day, the accumulated layers of fears that weigh us down, and way-down deep in the bottom the fierce and overwhelming foes that we cannot even begin to face.  Let Me carry that for you.

When we spread out these things, we are not revealing anything new and mysterious to God.  He sees and knows already.  But spreading and praying out into the open where we can see them in the sunlight, we find them faded, broken and without any power over us.  When we spread them out, God always unfolds something new. 

Double-Knot Your Shoes

I was still a fairly new and inexperienced runner when I entered a 5k race in the little town where we had moved.  It was well-before the craze of running had taken over our country.  I was not a serious runner by any means. By measure of pace, mere jogging would be a better descriptor.  For me, it was just another way of enjoying the outdoors.  And at the time, in a new location, as a young mom with two babies, and as a transplanted Yankee in a very southern town, participating was another way of connecting in our community.

But running began to teach me a lot more than how to exercise. Discipline in any form bleeds over into so many other areas of life.  As in every endeavor in life, I learned to approach and navigate the hills, blind turns, and unexpected potholes that loom suddenly into view, a discipline of endurance on many different levels.

And in that busy season of infants and toddlers, running helped me hit the reset button when I was out of my mind by the end of the day.  Before my husband returned from work, I would get supper ready, the baby girls settled, and pull on my running clothes for a quick run before we ate.  It was a routine in which each one of us thrived.

This particular 3.1 mile race took place on a weekday evening, a charity event sponsored by a local group.  I was one of the few women runners, and it was only my second race ever.  

With only about a quarter of a mile left in the race, I learned what seemed like an insignificant detail developing into something that mattered a lot.  I had tied on my running shoes, ready to run.  But I had not double-knotted them.   Over the course of the race, without my notice, the laces on my running shoes loosened, and my right shoe fell off.  I ran the rest of the course with only one shoe.

First rule of running, double-knot your shoes.  I haven’t forgotten that.

Along about the same time, I met an older woman at church.   She recommended to me, “Make the Bible the first thing you read in the day.”  I haven’t forgotten that either.

But I would add praying to that.  Double-knot your shoes.  God’s Word and prayer at the beginning of the day changes how we run through our day. 

What difference does it make?  Keeps me running with Him, courage in my veins, and shoes on my feet.  First things first.  Not so insignificant at all.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?  So run that you may obtain it.  Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.  They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.   1 Corinthians 9. 24-25