What’s Bugging You?
My grandson was happily pushing his truck along our kitchen floor and I was enjoying watching him. He suddenly stopped, looked at the ground in front of him, and froze, with a concerned look on his face.
“What’s the matter, bud?”
He just pointed and let out a grumpy whine.
I went over and looked closely. It was a tiny ant that I could barely see.
I stepped on it. He looked again, then went on playing with his truck.
So concerned over a tiny, harmless thing.
But then my mind went back to what I had been pondering previously, and I thought, “Stupid, Scott. Your grandson is just like you. Letting silly little harmless things stop you in your tracks and overwhelm your thinking.”
The thing that was on my mind was nothing to God. He can squash it all just like a little bug. And if He doesn’t, it’s because He knows how harmless it ultimately is. Nothing gets in the way of God’s plans. Our concerns are like little bugs to Him. While we may not understand the things that appear to be threats to us, they are nothing to Him.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long” (2 Corinthians 4:17 NLT).
Those “small” troubles Paul was referring to included imprisonment, beatings, and all sorts of hardships most of us will never have to face. But Paul said they were small and short-lived.
How could he view such horrendous hardship that way? Because he viewed his adversity against the backdrop of eternity. He continued, “We don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever” (2 Corinthians 4:18 NLT).
When we zoom out and refocus on the big picture, seeing our lives from God’s perspective, we can quickly understand where Paul was coming from and adopt his mindset as our own. Jesus was the best example. The author of Hebrews says that Jesus endured the cross because He saw past His pain to our salvation (Hebrews 12:2).
Jesus had that perspective while being crucified. Paul did it in the aftermath of being shipwrecked and floating on a board in the sea for a couple of days, and being stoned nearly to death before that. But against the backdrop of eternity, all these were “small troubles.” Bugs to be squashed by an almighty God.
What little bug has gotten your attention lately? What has stopped you in your tracks? And how can you zoom out and see the big picture? Because from God’s perspective, whatever that thing is, it’s just a little ant, soon to be squashed.