Raleigh, NC USA
Every day, I challenge myself to see God in something ordinary, which, if you’ve followed my blogs, is something I learned along the race. I have a funny story that involves a plunger and homemade borscht if you feel compelled to read on.
As I’m still suffering from an acute case of PWRSD (Post-World Race Stress Disorder), I found myself craving a big bowl of homemade borscht, you know, the traditional beet soup they eat in eastern Europe. Beets are a colorful food to cook with, and when making borscht, there ends of being a pool of purple left in the sink after rinsing, peeling and grating several pounds of beets. Up until this point, I’d had no problems with my garbage disposal since I’d moved into my new place. But the disposal and the beets seemed to have a disagreement this time. The sink would not drain, no matter how long I ran the disposal. I was puzzled. I thought all the leftover beet pieces were small enough to go through the disposal without putting up much of a fight. I was wrong. So, I began to pray. We are supposed to pray without ceasing, right? (1 Thessalonians 5:17)…even if it involves asking Jesus to fix the garbage disposal 🙂 So, I began to pray and I said, Lord, if you are able, would you please fix the sink? And then I began to have this internal conversation (don’t judge — you have them, too, and if you claim not to, then you are a liar!), and I thought, who am I to think that God isn’t capable of fixing this sink?…He can do ANYTHING. At that very moment, the Lord said, “Get the plunger and YOU fix it.” Lo & behold, I found myself braced with one foot on the stepstool and the other foot on top of the counter, plunging like I’d never plunged before (take a moment, picture this, and have yourself a laugh)…and then, what do you know…the sink began to drain. Jesus answered my prayer 🙂 But He used me to answer it.
Two things I am reminded of here:
1.) This sort of reminds me of when Jesus fed the five thousand when the disciples were concerned about how they would ever feed so many hungry people, and Jesus replied, “YOU give them something to eat,” (Matthew 14:16, Mark 6:37, Luke 9:13…thanks for pointing this out, Hannah!). Jesus already had in mind what He would do (John 6:6), but He challenged the disciples to think for themselves. So they did, and then Jesus did His part after they did theirs and they jointly fed the multitude.
This leads me to the moral of the story…
2.) Yes, God can do anything you ask. He is not renstricted to the ways of the natural world. He can make miracles happen and He can move mountains (my friend Jenni actually had a mountain moved for her when she was moving last year!), BUT I think oftentimes He wants US to try fixing the problem first with the wisdom HE has given us. He wants us to put in the effort and work WITH Him to live out His will. He is not the type of father who coddles His young and does everything for them until they take their last breath…we would never grow if that were the case. He is the type of father who wants us to grow and He wants us to listen.
Thank you, Lord for this simple reminder!
