Years ago, when our son, Ben, was in middle school he had
some Christmas money burning a hole in his pocket. He had in mind what he wanted to buy, and he
knew he could get it at Wal-Mart. The
prospect of visiting that particular store evokes in me deliberations not
unlike those preceding elective surgery, but it was his money. So off to “Wally World” we went.
I was mildly encouraged when we got there, because from our
parking space I could still see parts of the actual store. As we approached the leviathan, its great
glass jaws opened. It breathed a shot of
warm, processed breath on us then sucked us in.
Once inside the teeming maw, we squirmed through the crowds back to the
section housing Ben’s heart’s latest desire.
And it was there. Wal-Mart does
seem to have just about everything.
As we moved about the aisle surveying the goods, I happened
to step in front of another customer, a young man in his early twenties.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“I didn’t mean to get in your way.”
The man let out a snorting chuckle and said, “You ain’t in
my way, buddy. [Heck], this is WAL-MART!”
Indeed it was. And
it’s dog-eat-dog in there.
As a new school year approaches, life often seems to speed
up and get more crowded and complicated.
For all of us, it is often as ease to get caught up and overwhelmed by
the push into fall and prepare for all the upcoming holidays as it is to get
caught up in the sense that Wal-Mart not only offers everything we need, but
that we need everything Wal-Mart offers.
“There is need of only one thing,” says Jesus to the distracted
and busied Martha. Be grateful. And in gratitude we are blessed with a sense
of wholeness and of enough.
When we are without some worldly thing we want or need,
Wal-Mart says, “Come to me. But bring
your wallet!” By contrast, when we find
ourselves out of time and energy for living, God says, “Come to me and give me
some of that time you don’t have, and I will bless it.”
Martin Luther once said that the more time he committed
toward his work the more he needed to take time out and dedicate it to
prayer. It sounds illogical, but things
often work backward in the kingdom. (Or
could it be that they work backward here in the world we have beaten into
submission?) In either case, just when
we think we have no time for spiritual nurture and growth, that is the very
moment when our time given to God is often the greatest blessing.
Find your blessings.
Be a blessing.
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