I came home one day recently to this scene – a laundry room completely ransacked. No, I wasn’t broken into by robbers. My cat Hobson decided to have a field day and climb onto things he shouldn’t have been climbing on – resulting in a mess on the laundry room floor.
Somedays, life is like that. Things are going along smoothly, and we turn a corner or open a door. SURPRISE! Something totally unexpected is waiting for us.
So how do we handle these inconveniences, these surprises, these irritations?
- We can get angry and lash out at the one who caused the inconvenience.
- We can stuff our emotions inside, smiling on the outside, but grumbling the whole time internally while cleaning it up.
- We can thank God for the inconvenience and trust that He will use it for His purpose in our lives. I may not like what happened, but I can still thank God for bringing it into my life for a reason. I may not understand why, but I can rest in the fact that God has a bigger plan and purpose than I can see.
Life is full of twists and turns. How will we respond to those surprises and inconveniences in life?
As James said in James 1:2-4: “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
To be honest, I wasn’t overjoyed with the scene I walked in on that day; and my initial response was, “Hobson! What have you done???!!!” But as I cleaned up the mess, I thought about how many messes I’ve made in my life, and God still loved me and cleaned them up for me. It was a good reminder.
