OH! So that's what that's for.

Working from home has it’s interesting rituals that you won’t find in any corporate office. One of my more daily rituals occurs when my soon to be two-year-old will bring some toy, book or thing that she has discovered and place it in my lap. I then take the toy, book or thing and place it on my desk. By the end of the week, I’ll often have a nice stash.

One of the side games that often follows this ritual is “Name that Thing.” The toys are easy to recognize and place back in their proper storage containers, but then there are those pieces, parts and bits. Those things that have come apart or she has torn apart and brought me only a piece. Those things that you look at and say, “What is this and where did you find it?”

She never answers that question, and your job as the parent is to search it out and discover the answer yourself. Sometimes it can be instantly recognized, but sometimes you only discover the answer when you go to use your remote control, electric razor or some other gadget to discover a piece missing has made it inoperable. At that moment the revelation strikes. “Oh! So that’s what that’s for!”

The most difficult part of the “Name that Thing” game is deciding which thing is trash, and which thing isn’t. More than once, because I couldn’t “Name that Thing” I trashed a part I shouldn’t have. The result left a crippled gadget or toy, and the thought, “Oh, so that’s what that was for.”

Many times in our hectic lives we are called to make snap decisions. Priorities are shifted and schedules rearranged by events throughout our day. We often end the day miles short of our expected accomplishments. Things we planned to do were dropped from our schedule for the “urgent” and “immediate” things that arrived throughout the day. The prayer time and bible study still on our to-do list is pushed to the next day, and we hit our beds with the expectation that tomorrow we’ll do better.

Only the next day we find it more hectic. Tomorrow is even busier, and we can’t hear God through the noise of daily life. It is in those times when we can’t find peace, our emotions are raw, and we are more than short tempered, that we look back at our prayer times and say, “Oh. So that’s what that’s for.”

What is in your hand

Frustration often occurs when you feel under supplied for the task ahead. How can God expect you to achieve the vision He has placed in your heart without the tools you need do it?

God’s tools to accomplish a mission are not always the tools we’d expect.

In John chapter six, Jesus asked his disciples to feed five-thousand. You can hear the frustration in Phillip’s voice when he describes their apparent lack of provision. “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that everyone may have a little.” Another speaks up, “We’ve got a two piece fish dinner here, like that’s going to be enough.”

What we often fail to realize is that what we view as insufficient, is often the key to unlock the miracle of God. A two piece fish dinner was the key to feeding the five thousand. The staff in Moses’ hand was the key to unleashing plagues upon the Egyptians and freeing Israel from captivity. David’s sling was the key to winning a war, and a stepping stone to becoming king.

If you want to see God fulfill the visions He’s placed in your heart, stop whining about the lack of provision you think is necessary, and begin to ask God, “What do you want me to use?” The answer might surprise you. It did me.