Recently while attending a women’s luncheon at my church, the speaker gave a devotion on the wagon of rocks by Janet Keisel. Janet shared with her readers how we all live in busy and hectic worlds pulled in many directions knowing that each of us have to decide which things take priorities in our lives.
As our speaker shared the devotion, “the story is told of a man who met God one day. God asked him to take a wagon with a rock to the top of the mountain. God gave the man specific instructions, sketching a map in the dust. The man cheerfully set off pulling the wagon behind him.”
The man met others along the way, asking the man to also carry their rocks in his wagon. When the man reached his destination, he was discouraged and worn out from the heavy load with all the other rocks. He told God it was too much for him to bear. God reminded him, he had given him a wagon with one rock and a specific task.
Yet, how often do we “take on” other responsibilities. Years ago, I recalled so vividly the pastor’s sermon on doing so much for our church and God, that we forsake our families and the role God gave us. Even though it was decades ago I heard this sermon, it has been easy to “take on too much” forsaking the rock God called me to carry. How often have you heard people say, “if you want a task done, ask a busy person, for they are the ones to do it.”
We feel we can’t say no, but we can indeed. God gave us a wagon to make our load easier, not to load it down with assorted and trivial things which merely “keep us busy.” So often we can see this in other’s lives, yet we have failed to remove the boulder from our eye to see that we too do this very thing. We may not like the task God gave us to do. We feel it is not as worthy as what He has given others.
Thus, we take on more and more obligations until we are so weighed down we can’t pull our wagons or even manage to walk up the hill. Our families are pleading with us to “stop” or “slow down”, but we feel we have something to prove. We have nothing to prove if it isn’t what God asked us to do. We have made ourselves grander than God. We have said we believe we know better than God.
These past twelve years of my life have been filled with life lessons, but perhaps the greatest has been in knowing that I can do nothing without God. He hasn’t always given me a wagon to make my load easier. He has sometimes asked me to carry the large rock alone and it was heavy. I panted and sweated as I carried the rock. Yet, God was always at my side if I needed assistance. NKJ Luke 16:10 “he who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much…”
thegiftofgivingandgratitude 