It is amazing how quickly something tiny can become a huge irritation. Like a pebble in our shoe an insignificant annoyance can become a real problem.
I live very far from home and family. My job overseas means that I miss family functions, special celebrations, and the usual holidays.
Yesterday was Easter Sunday and my heart was home with my family even as I pushed through the work day in my host country. As soon as I got home I signed in to my online phone account and tried to call my family members. The buzz and ring of the device went on and on with no answer making my heart fall with each passing second.
Between the time difference and the busy schedule of special services back home I never reached my family members to wish the a blessed resurrection day and some of the joy I had felt throughout the day at the glorious reminder that Christ is Risen in deed, was marred.
As the night wore on, the annoyance began to chafe and by the morning I woke grumpy and out of sorts with the world because the pebble had begun to make an impression on my 'soul'. I drove to work in a snit, grumbling at the other drives who were in my way, growled at the daily routine of checking in for the days duties and was in general surly in my heart toward the unfair world.
As I set at my desk I thought of my daily routine and those few precious moments I reserve to read the verse of the day. Opening my device to read the words were an icy reminder: "do nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting the other better than himself; not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to thing of others."
I must admit to feeling a bit of shame for the anger I had fanned into a bright spark in my heart for the slight of not getting to talk to family on a day of great joy. I'd forgotten that a tiny pebble if not removed would grow into a huge problem, a mountain to be over come.
Each day will bring trials, worries, frustrations, and those little annoyances that rub us the wrong way, but there is an answer to that chafing little stone in the bottom of our shoe. All we have to do is stop, and shake our our 'souls'. Taking those few moments alone with God, searching his words for peace, joy and understand, will turn that pebble into something of growth and beauty.
Do you have a pebble in your shoe today? Remove it, give it to God and watch him build something beautiful.
God bless you this day and always and may the joy of His resurrection go with you each step of the way.
"The spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead live in you" Romans 8:11