Bees

The surprises in daily life that alter our day. We didn’t plan for these unexpected interruptions.

Mowing my lawn takes a negligible amount of time. I’m in love with my battery-powered self-propelled push mower, and we have a good, reliable track record. But when I mow over a hornets nest and they get mad and attack both of my legs and sting me right through my pants and I feel like I’m on fire from my knees down, the simple task of mowing the lawn stops so I can sit on the kitchen floor with ice on my legs (that’s after calling my mom sobbing because I’m not a fan of this new experience, and then she comes over and sits with me. . . love you, Mom). And if you’ve read previous posts, you know how much I value having my lawn mowed, so this was a most unwelcome interruption.

“The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord established his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 ESV

Sometimes (oftentimes!) our plans are interrupted. Big or small, these interruptions can impact the rest of our day. 

Imagine being a slave who just left Egypt. You plan on lots of walking and arriving in a promised place, but now Pharaoh is chasing you (Exodus 14:10-14). Or imagine you’re Gideon, planning to spend the day hiding food from your enemies, but God has a different mission for you (Judges 6:11-18). 

Not all interruptions will disrupt our plans, and not interruptions are big messages from God. . . but some are. Let’s pause in the midst of impactful interruptions to see what God is doing or teaching us.

Bonus thought: How do we respond to interruptions? With grace? That’s not usually my initial response. . . but I’m working on it.

And the result of my interruption? I spent five nights outside at 8:00 alternating between spraying the holes in the ground with a magic position of bee bomb and throwing dirt in the holes. I’m sure I provided the neighbors with something else fun to watch when I was outside in sneakers, pajama bottoms, and a bright yellow windbreaker throwing dirt across the backyard in the rain. Good times. But I won that bee battle.

Weeds

The things we can’t seem to get rid of, no matter how hard we try.

I rip them out of the ground. More appear. I rip those out of the ground. More grow and taunt me. I try weed killer. I’m pretty sure they’re just laughing at me. I never thought I’d spend this much time weeding my driveway. Something’s wrong here.

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 1:6-7 ESV

Have you ever had a problem or difficult situation that just won’t go away? It’s there when you wake up, when you get ready for bed, and you just can’t get away from it. I can think of times when this happened to me at work and at church, and even with my health. And although I prayed for it to be taken from me, it wasn’t. . . not right away. But I’m not the first to feel like this. I often think of Paul when he wrote about a thorn in his side that wouldn’t go away: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 ESV.

Again, how do we respond to these situations? Yes, with frustration. Yes, with sadness. No, not with patience (but we should). And no, not with understanding (which we probably won’t have). But prayer is powerful, and just because we don’t get an answer of relief right away that doesn’t mean God is ignoring us. He just knows more than we do.

And my weeds? Well, the taller they get, the easier they are to pull up. I like to think of it as the rustic look 🙂

Poison Things

The unnoticed things we don’t see the effects of until later.

I had poison ivy for most of the month of April. I dreaded waking up in the morning and seeing new patches appear. Even now when I feel an itch I prepare myself for those itchy red bumps, even when they aren’t there. (But again, I got poison ivy through my pants last week. I no longer wear those pants for yard work – they didn’t help me with bees, either.)

Sometimes we have unrecognized influences in our environment, things that we’re around so often we don’t notice them anymore. What comes to mind? Bad habits, language, gossip, etc.

Jesus warned about such unrecognized things when he mentioned leaven (when leaven was used in making bread it spread throughout the entire batch). He was referring to the practices and rules of the Jewish leadership that people were following because they were told to, not because they were based in His Gospel (Matthew 16:11-12).

The chronicles of Biblical kings come to mind since we’ve been studying them in my Children’s Church class. The historical books of the Old Testament follow a basic pattern: The king followed God. The next one didn’t. The next one was even worse than him. then his son followed God. And on and on. But there were some kings who followed God but didn’t remove the high place of worship to other gods. The kingdom still contained negative influences that distracted people from worshipping God alone (2 Kings 12:1-3).

What do I engage in that’s influencing me without me fully understanding its impact on my life? Social media? TV? Friends? Colleagues?

When I look back, do I recognize how I was influenced without seeing the effects until later?

And the latest? I got pissed and went to Home Depot and got something to spray and kill all things poison, and two days later walked around the yard saying aloud, “Yeah baby, shrivel and die.” Again, lots of entertainment for the neighbors. I’m sure they think I’m an excellent role model for their young children.