A little boy was spending his
morning playing in his sandbox. He had with
him his box of cars and trucks, his plastic
pail, and a shiny, red plastic shovel. In the
process of creating roads and tunnels in the
soft sand, he discovered a large rock in the
middle of the sandbox.
The lad dug around the rock, managing to
dislodge it from the dirt. With no little bit
of struggle, he pushed and nudged the rock
across the sandbox by using his feet. (He was
a very small boy and the rock was very huge.)
When the boy got the rock to the edge of the
sandbox, however, he found that he couldn't
roll it up and over the little wall.
Determined, the little boy shoved, pushed,
and pried, but every time he thought he had
made some progress, the rock tipped and then
fell back into the sandbox.
The little boy grunted, struggled, pushed,
shoved-but his only reward was to have the
rock roll back, smashing his chubby fingers.
Finally he burst into tears of frustration.
All this time the boy's father watched from
his living room window as the drama unfolded.
At the moment the tears fell, a large shadow
fell across the boy and the sandbox. It was
the boy's father.
Gently but firmly he said, "Son, why didn't
you use all the strength that you had
available? Defeated, the boy sobbed back,
"But I did, Daddy, I did! I used all the
strength that I had! "No, son," corrected the
father kindly. "You didn't use all the
strength you had. You didn't ask me." With
that the father reached down, picked up the
rock, and removed it from the sandbox.
Sound familiar??? We all have rocks to move, we need to go directly to our Father to get the job done!!
(courtesy of Katherine Rowland)