The plumber is coming this morning to fix a wonky kitchen faucet. I scrubbed the sink and picked up the kitchen a bit so he wouldn’t have to deal with our mess. As I walked through the family room, which also houses one of the cats’ litterboxes, secreted away inside a wicker chest, I noticed that a few grains of litter were scattered on the floor. Easy to ignore until later.
Our family room faces north/south which means it gets very little sunlight except in the mornings during late winter and then only a few bars coming through one window. Which means that my walk through the family room was done in relative darkness. When I walked back through, I was facing in the other direction and that bar of sunlight exposed a broad swathe of litter scattered from the kitchen entrance past the litter box and continuing on into the hall entrance—apparently the cats had a party last night. No longer was it something that I could ignore. I had walked through it and my slippers had helped to distribute it down the hall and into the bedroom.
Now lest you are seeing piles of dirty litter, it was the little grains that stick to the cat’s paws when they exit the box. The litter mat was NOT doing a very good job of grabbing the stuff, so the cats tracked it onto the floor. Because the family room is a dark room, I didn’t see the extent of the problem.
I was struck by the difference between what I saw in the dark vs. what I saw in the light. And this scripture came to mind as I swept up the mess:
Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. John 3:19
It is a popular pastime to bash those we believe are evil, but that is not what I want to talk about. I want to apply this principle a little closer to home. I was invited by Vision TV to have a show on their network. I found that invitation exciting and intimidating. I was expected to create four 30-minute episodes per month. I am a very methodical teacher. I don’t produce off-the-cuff encouraging words or prophetic pronouncements or preach another person’s sermon. I spend hours praying, studying, scripting, and editing. I also have a blog to keep up with; I teach in-person and on-line, and I’m writing a third Heart book and a novel. Plus! I have family, pets, friends, and church involvement and so on. What it comes down to is this opportunity has been very challenging for me.
Since I began producing teachings for Vision TV, I noticed that I struggled to blog. I had set aside my novel and the new Heart book. I was only just keeping up with my teaching and ministry obligations. All my energy went into working on episodes for television. Whenever I asked God about blogging, I would hit a wall in the spirit. No flow. No life. Nada.
I finally decided to take a real good look at that wall while inviting the Lord to shine a bit of light on it. Here is what I realized. I believed that God would only help me with one creative effort at a time. I think I even believed that His help was limited. One stream flowing at a time. That belief is one small step away from believing that God Himself is limited.
How does this tie in with cat litter, you ask? As long as I accepted the wall between me and my other creative pursuits, I was walking in a kind of darkness. I didn’t see that the wall was what I believed about God and His willingness and even able-ness to help me. I could not see that my deeds were evil, in a sense, because the greatest evil we can commit, in my opinion, is believing a lie about God. I feel that believing lies about God leads to every other sin. That’s my opinion. Don’t shoot me.
So, I lived with my broad swathe of unbelief, blinded to it for only one reason. I didn’t stop, look at the wall with intent, and ask God to turn on the light so that I could see what was really there—what was hidden within the darkness. Now, all metaphors break down eventually, but let’s see if this one holds up a little longer.
Just like my slippers picked up the litter and distributed it everywhere I walked, am I unknowingly carrying this little pocket of unbelief in the willingness and ability of God into other areas of my life? Is unbelief stuck to my walk?
You know, once God brightened up the darkness, I felt really silly. Did I really believe that God’s flow was so limited? How dumb could I be? (Don’t answer that).
I haven’t got to the part where I ask the Lord the big why question: Why did I believe you were limited in such a way? I’ll get to that when the time is right. Meanwhile, the faucet is working again! Another metaphor, haha!
I think we all have something hidden in the darkness. It may be a big or small thing, a belief that we have never questioned. It is our beliefs that lead to our actions or non-actions. Let’s look intently at the walls in our lives and ask the Lord to shine light into the darkness.
Lord God,
I really do not want to wander around in darkness, bumping into walls, and stepping on cat litter. Please shine your light into the darkness and light up anything that is blocking Your flow in my life.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen
God bless,
Susan
Thepoolministries.org
