A Door of Hope

Scripture Passage: 1 Corinthians 1

“ But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.” 1 Corinthians 1:27

It is a beautiful spring morning, and I stand at the doorway watching my little girl. She is only a toddler and her small hands pat impatiently on the windowpane as she looks outside. These are large, old windows with pull-down window shades. Her tiny form is half hidden as she wrestles with the shade, pushing and pulling at it to look outside. “Up, Mama,” she says, now trying to lift up the bottom half and growing more and more frustrated with this contraption blocking her view. She has watched me before as I’ve gone to these windows and raised the shade, but she can’t figure out how it works. “Pull down, sweetie,” I call to her. She stops and looks at me with questioning brown eyes. “Up, Mama!” My directions make no sense to her. She’s bright. She knows down and up. “Pull it down and it will go up,” I say to her again. Cautiously she pulls down and lets go. Swoosh! The shade flies all the way up and we collapse on the floor giggling at the surprise of it, sunlight now streaming in through the large unshaded window. Quite a few years have passed since that day but God used my tiny daughter and a window shade to teach me an important lesson. There have been times when I have wrestled with obstacles in my own life—things that got in my way and blocked my view. Things that I didn’t understand, that frustrated me. How often I have turned to Him for help, and then questioned His direction. His ways were completely opposite from my own reasoning, and the wisdom the world offered. God’s plan didn’t always make sense to me, just as the spring mechanism in a window shade made no sense to a toddler. But my own child loved me and trusted me enough to obey what must have seemed to her pure foolishness, and what followed was joy. Are you frustrated by circumstances in your life? Are God’s ways sometimes confusing to you as you seek to follow His will? Trust Him. Obey Him. Joy will follow.