Fear and foolishness
November 3, 2009
When I was about eight years old I believed foolish things. For some reason I believed that the power of a simple AA battery could cause a massive explosion if placed in water. Call it childhood ignorance or grade school science, but one rainy day seemingly changed my life.
I clasped a battery between my hands and carefully trotted to my class. My shoes were just as soaked as my hair because I never used an umbrella or stayed out of puddles like my mom told me to. I don’t remember why I had the battery, but my eyes were fixed on my tightly folded fingers, worried about water seeping through the cracks. I was so fixated on my hands that I didn’t see the curb in front of me and tripped.
“NOO!” I shouted. I saw the battery fly out of my hands in slow motion toward a puddle of water. I imagined a fireball blowing me away, my classroom destroyed and all my friends hurt because of my foolishness. While face down on the wet cement, I covered my head with my arms and braced for an explosion of Hollywood proportions.
–
Needless to say, my perception of the world and how it functioned was incorrect. This story of my childhood popped into my mind today during my Perspectives course.
I’m pretty ignorant sometimes (many times). I have such a small concept of God. Even though I know he’s an incredible, omnipotent and amazing God, I sometimes get complacent because I think I figured him out. It sort of becomes an “oh, so that’s how He works, this is the way things are” mindset.
I know very little of God. I know very little about life. I know very little about his Kingdom. I know very little about what Heaven will be like.
But my prayer is to be obedient to God in the very little things that I know.
–
I noticed there wasn’t an explosion. I also noticed that some of the things I firmly believed were wrong. I held onto my beliefs so tightly that it would blur the path ahead of me. God is bigger than what’s in my hands. I need to stop looking at them and begin looking at the bigger picture. If I want God to use these tools, I need to obey and loosen the grip.
Batteries won’t explode in water.
