Mole Hills, Not Mountains!!

Pastor Don Baker relates a story of Rev. Tom Erickson: The public Library has a system called "Dial-A-Tale." Anytime a young child wants to hear a fairy tale, he can call the number and a voice comes on reading a short fairy tale to the listening young ear. However, the number is only one digit different from Rev. Tom Erickson. Because the small fingers often make a mistake, Tom gets frequent calls from a child listening for a fairy tale. After several unsuccessful attempts to explain a wrong number to the small child, Tom felt he had only one alternative. He obtained a copy of Three Little Pigs, and set it by the phone. Now, whenever a child calls, he simply reads them the tale. A beautiful illustration of yielding personal rights. he didn't, as you might have thought, change his telephone number to avoid the "invasion of his privacy."
Sometimes life is annoying and it steps into our path with one thing or another.  In those times our reaction is more important than the annoyance.  Just like the mistaken number

calling Pastor Erickson in the story about reading fairy tales, things happen and we have to decide how we will best handle those situations that are sometimes unavoidable.  We like to call it chance or luck and just deal with it in the best way possible.  Our reaction to these barbed wire situations make for a great witness or a poor one.  I have had so many shruggable moments in my life, I should be an expert in how to deal with them, but I am not.  A shruggable moment is when all you can do is either blow up or shrug your shoulders and go on.  Of course, blowing up is just that....blowing up.  Being able to shrug your shoulders and go on in life's storms is a sign that you are "getting it" in the area of discernment.  Jesus had to constantly deal with bumps in the road from people who "just didn't get it" either.  In John 7 Jesus was dealing with some of his brothers wanting to get him to show off some miracles for His followers to make Him look more and more famous, but Jesus warned them that the time for Him being widely known was not at that time.  Jesus, of course, saw the big picture and that picture was the redemption of mankind through His crucifixion.  His perfect discernment gives us a clear understanding of how to deal with things that are just a little off of our plan in life.  God has a great plan for each of us and the bumps in the road will be something God uses to develop our lives to live that plan.  Our appeal to God for discernment in situations that sometimes catch us off guard will enable us to best deal with those things that cross our paths.  So what am I saying?  We need to be immersed in God's wisdom about how to deal with those things we don't plan on and that wisdom needs to be coupled with a big picture mindset.
I have had interruptions happen all along my walk as a believer.  I have handled some of them with a big picture mentality, but many I have handled in a petty way and the end result was making the annoyance a bigger problem.  In John 7 the crowds were nitpicking what Jesus was saying and doing and even though he was the Son of God, they were missing the point of who He was and His purpose.  He discerned the situation and dealt with it with truth and that truth allowed Him to keep moving to accomplish the big picture.  Annoyance dealt with!!!  As believers we will have one annoyance after another and they will either distract us, slow us down, or propel us further along in our walk.  If we are living with a big picture attitude, the annoyances will only  cause us to dig deeper into God's Word for perfect answers to handle these imperfect situations.  Then when someone says to us "That was a rough time!"  We will be able to say, "in the big picture of life, it was just an annoyance, but it's not slowing me down from what I need to do in my life."  So, don't make mountains out of mole hills and deal with things in a God discerned way and you won't "freak out" when the big things come your way.  My wife has a saying she heard one time and even painted it on a canvas and it is displayed in our home. It says, "Where are you looking?  Fear looks at the storm, Faith looks at the Savior."  If you will look at the Savior on this one and see how He handled those bumps in the road, He will give you a good perspective on how to deal with these mole hills.  Jesus is once again the very best example of "living in the flow" of life and handling it with true discernment and Godly wisdom.  Oh, what we can learn from the example of the "Son of God!"

The Pilgrimage continues....

David Warren