Wednesday’s Jewels

I love it when I stumble upon words that quietly take up residence in my soul: a quote worth sharing, a question worth asking, a prayer worth repeating. I love it when a truth teller’s reverent musings lift my thoughts above dirty diapers, dirty dishes and dirty laundry. I feel grateful when another seeker’s words chase me shamelessly to the Living Word. As the wise writer of Proverbs declares, “The right word at the right time is like a custom-made piece of jewelry…” (Proverbs 34:11).

I’m digging in somebody else’s jewelry box today. I think you’ll enjoy the poignant pearls of truth that accessorize this post. If you’ve found the “right word at the right time” this week, feel free to open your box of jewels and share it here. I’d love to pick it up, polish it off and enjoy its beauty, too!

In his delightful book A Chance At Childhood Again, father and pastor Alan D. Wright reminds us that our incessant quest to know is a stumbling block as old as time. The fiasco, Wright claims, began in the garden:

God made a man and gave him a garden. It was a beautiful, delectable garden. “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground–trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food” (Genesis 2:9). And the Lord told the man that he was welcome to eat any fruit of any tree in the garden, except for one. One tree the man was not to taste. He was just to wonder about it. “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat if it, you will surely die.” (V17). But neither the man, nor his newly created mate was content to wonder. They wanted to KNOW and so they ate themselves sick.

When I’m tired of “eating myself sick” with my quest to KNOW, then perhaps I need to become like a child again and enjoy the mysteries of life. 

Think about it, Wright muses, When we were children, we wondered a lot…. We couldn’t see over the crowd, so we wondered what everyone was staring at. We thought the hill in our backyard was a mountain and we wondered how to climb it. We believed that Santa was real, and we wondered how such a fat jolly old soul could fit down our little chimney. 
 
 Today, I think I’ll just let my Heavenly Father figure out the details of  my life. I don’t really NEED to KNOW all that the next twenty-four hours will hold. I simply need to KNOW that Someone far bigger than me holds this day in His hands. For now, I’m content to crane my head above my to-do list and wonder what my Father will do next!