Have you ever been there… stuck on the toilet, no toilet paper in the dispenser, and all that leaving you in desperate need of a miracle from God to provide for your apparent needs?
We’ve all been there.
Where do our hearts go IMMEDIATELY? We start to blame the person that left that cardboard roll with no life-giving tissue remaining. We blame our spouse. We blame our kids. We blame our coworkers.
I think this is a moment we encounter in more ways than we realize.
We see a problem. We identify an area of improvement. Then… we ask, “Who should do that?”
One thing I’m sure of is that we all see different things.
Maybe that’s the wrong question to ask.
This is a part of the human experience that we cannot escape. We all see things from our perspective. Every experience, every day, from our very beginning, is a first-person narrative happening within our heads. It actually takes a lot of self-awareness and effort to try to even get past that. Even when we try, there are gaps and holes in what we see.
Maybe that’s not a liability. Perhaps it’s a gift.
You’ve probably heard a couple or a parent/child complain the high levels of conflict in their relationship are stemming from the simple problem that they can’t see “eye to eye.” Well… maybe that’s the point. Perhaps you’re not supposed to. Perhaps you’re supposed to see different things from a different perspective.
If we all saw the same thing, imagine the blind spots that would exist in our lives.
Too often, we see problems or areas of improvement and start to blame others. It’s someone’s job to do that. Who’s job is it? Who should be doing this? Why didn’t they do it? Who needs to step up their game?
Maybe it’s not somebody else that should be doing that.
Maybe it’s you.
Maybe the problems you see are really opportunities for YOU.
Perhaps your perspective is a God-given opportunity for you to see needs that need to be met or problems that need to be solved that only YOU, uniquely can meet and resolve.
Maybe the better question isn’t, “Who should do that?” but instead we should be praying “God… are you showing me this to pray about or do something about?”
Prayer isn’t inactivity. It’s recognizing that something isn’t YOUR problem, but is instead GOD’S PROBLEM! If it’s not your problem, you can’t solve it. Prayer is the place we go when we see issues that aren’t ours, but we are aware of the problem and invested in the solution. We pray because we know we have a good God that hears us and responds to our prayers! Prayer activates that power of God on our behalf!
But… If it’s YOUR PROBLEM if it’s something YOU can do something about… DO SOMETHING!
Maybe you should open your eyes, ask God to really let you see the opportunities in your life, and then respond. Do something. You won’t likely solve it in one moment, but you can take the next step (and then the next step, and so on).
Maybe if we’d really open our eyes and respond, we could solve some problems before they really become problems.
Think about the bathroom…
What if you simply looked around before you sat down to check that you had all the tools necessary for the job at hand? We do that in every other area of life. We don’t start cooking and then blame someone for not going to the grocery store. Maybe that’s your job.
Maybe it was your job all along.
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What opportunities have you seen that you need to start responding to?