A
little boy was spending his Saturday morning playing in his sandbox.
He had with him his box of cars and trucks, his plastic pail,
and a shiny, red plastic shovel. In the process of creating roads
and tunnels in the soft sand, he discovered a large rock in the
middle of the sandbox.
The
boy dug around the rock, managing to dislodge it from the dirt.
With a little bit of struggle, he pushed and nudged the rock
across the sandbox by using his feet. (He was a very small boy,
and the rock was very large.) When the boy got the rock to the
edge of the sandbox however, he found that he couldn't roll it
up and over the little wall.
Determined,
the little boy shoved, pushed, and pried, but every time he thought
he had made some progress, the rock tipped and then fell back
into the sandbox. The little boy grunted, struggled, pushed, & shoved;
but his only reward was to have the rock roll back, smashing
his chubby fingers.
Finally
he burst into tears of frustration. All this time the boy's father
watched from his living room window as the drama unfolded. At
the moment the tears fell, a large shadow fell across the boy
and the sandbox. It was the boy's father. Gently but firmly he
said,
"Son,
why didn't you use all the strength that you had available?"
Defeated,
the boy sobbed back,
"But
I did, Daddy, I did! I used all the strength that I had!"
"No,
son," corrected the father kindly.
"You
didn't use all the strength you had. You didn't ask me."
With
that the father reached down, picked up the rock and removed
it from the sandbox.
Do
you have "rocks" in your life that need to be removed? Are you
discovering that you don't have what it takes to lift them? There
is One who is always available to us and willing to give us the
strength we need. Isn't it funny how we try so hard to do things
ourselves.
| Authors
Details: Unknown Author |
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