Have you ever played the arcade game Wack-a-Mole? I don’t care for this strange amusement where you hold an oversized, padded mallet and swing at furry, mechanized rodents, as they pop through holes in a table top. There is no winner, just tickets for a carnival prize and the euphoria of concussing an inanimate object. It’s nonsense, but each day a parallel routine is played over and over to my frustration and discouragement. The dishes are never all clean, the laundry is always faithful to fill my evenings. Even in my classroom, one loose tooth can distract the most disciplined children, and as we all agree to work for ten minutes before the next wiggle update, another crisis arises with broken pencils, lost crayons and a lunch box left on a school bus. The finish line of daily life is a moving target and failure to cross it is not an option I entertain.
I once had a pre-school handbell choir queued and ready to perform Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee. We hearsed and rehearsed. There was no way they could fail, if they kept their eyes on me and followed. THEN! One child jingled their pitch with an air guitar, rock star flair. Someone in the congregation giggled and immediately, all little musicians turned comedian. My tiny orchestra was now a troupe of circus clowns, and the reluctant ring master left the tent and never tried that act again. It was a ‘Wack-a-Mole’ experience!
There are days I just don’t feel like bearing fruit. My love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness are over picked or rotted on the vine in my fragile orchard of fatigue. A utopia of jobs completed to perfection followed by contented rest, vaporized, because my spinning and turning and smacking every obstacle that pops up before me was impossible.
Why is it asked of me, if it is unachievable? Maybe because it wasn’t God doing the asking? Who’s standards am I living to? God’s are simple, Love Him with all your mind, body and soul and then turn to your fellow man and love them too.
Some years after Christ was resurrected, many came to believe that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. Soon after, life became as awful as anyone could imagine. Dreams didn’t come true for these new believers. There was nothing but Hope in the constance of The Kingdom of God. Paul wrote to an extremely persecuted group of Gentile Christians:
In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
Romans 8:26
While my daily life, and maybe yours too, seems to be a series of bouncing rodents needing a thunk on the head, life’s finish line is constant. The Kingdom of God does not move or change. Someday, when I am very old, I think I will quietly drag my aluminum walker to the wall of some noisy game room and put an end to the craziness. In the mean time, I’m going to laugh at myself a little more often, encourage others, hold someone’s hand firmly when the path is rugged, and never turn loose of this truth, my Savior knows my need and my heart, so all is well, and I have fruit to spare, now and forever more.
Blessings,
Gretchen