Moving day is slowly approaching and we went outside today to begin raking up the leaves … and let me tell you, in all of the time that we lived in this house, the yard never seemed this big! All of a sudden it seemed bigger than ever before, and it was covered in what seemed like inches of leaves. Our task of simply raking up the leaves was starting to seem impossible, certainly more than we had anticipated, and much more than we all wanted to do today.
As the pile grew bigger and bigger it seemed like we were finally getting something done, yet every time we looked up and out across the yard, our progress seemed like we were getting no where fast. Eventually we moved our pile of leaves onto a large tarp and dragged it down to the bottom of the hill. As the tarp was being dragged away, across all of the other yet-to-be-raked leaves, I thought that it seemed like we had made a big accomplishment, yet there was still so much work to be done.
At that moment it made me think…often times this picture resembles our own lives, we have inequities and faults, and our lives are like the leaf covered grass, splattered with everything that shouldn’t be there, tainted by sin. This alone should drive us back to our knees, to come before God and let Him work a little more, cleanse a little more, mold us a little more.
Yet, its easy after we feel God shift us and we start to see some progress, to say to ourselves, “that’s good enough, we’ve made progress”. But all the while God is saying 'yes this is big, but I wish you could see how much more you need to loose, to lay down, there is a vast area that I still need to work in and clean up.' And when we look at the progress compared to the rest of the yard that is covered with leaves, we realize that there is still a lot of work to be done. It should propel us to ask God to show us the inequities and faults in our lives, so that we are not blind to the rest of the unclean, leaf strewn areas in our lives. For me…. I need to do this everyday. every. single. day. Because I know that without God’s mercy and grace there is no way that I would make it.
As I am standing there, watching the leaves disappear to the bottom of the hill, I hear it. Right then. In the middle of the ordinary and everyday, he is speaking. ‘yes you are leaning and yes you are growing but there is still more, just look at this, there is still more that I can do, it's going to be hard, and it's going to be a lot of work, but it will be worth it, and I can do it, but only if you allow me to’
I know, with everything in me, that I can’t do it on my own. It has to be through Him.
At 7:51 a.m., January 12, 2007, a young musician took his position against a wall in a Washington, D.C. metro station. He wore jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. He opened a violin case, removed his instrument, threw a few dollars and pocket change into the case as seed money, and began to play.
