A story of an ant

I have received this via e-mail as well as Facebook before. Unfortunately I do not know who the author is (or who the copyright for the pic belong to - sorry), but I wanted to share it with you, as well as some of my thoughts on it. I hope that it bless you as it did me.

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Brenda was almost halfway to the top of the tremendous granite cliff. She was standing on a ledge where she was taking a breather during this, her first rock climb. As she rested there, the safety rope snapped against her eye and knocked out her contact lens.

'Great', she thought. 'Here I am on a rock ledge, hundreds of feet from the bottom and hundreds of feet to the top of this cliff, and now my sight is blurry.' She looked and looked, hoping that somehow it had landed on the ledge. But it just wasn't there.

She felt the panic rising in her, so she began praying. She prayed for calm, and she prayed that she might find her contact lens. When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but it was not to be found. Although she was calm now that she was at the top, she was saddened because she could not clearly see across the range of mountains. She thought of the bible verse 'The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.'

She thought, 'Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me.'

Later, when they had hiked down the trail to the bottom of the cliff they met another party of climbers just starting up the face of the cliff. One of them shouted out, 'Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?'

Well, that would be startling enough, but you know why the climber saw it? An ant was moving slowly across a twig on the face of the rock, carrying it!

The story doesn't end there. Brenda's father is a cartoonist. When she told him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a cartoon of an ant lugging that contact lens with the caption, 'Lord, I don't know why you want me to carry this thing. I can't eat it, and it's awfully heavy. But if this is what you want me to do; I'll carry it for you.'

I think it would do all of us some good to say, 'God, I don't know why you want me to carry this load. I can see no good in it and it's awfully heavy. But, if you want me to carry it, I will.'

God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.

Without Him, I am nothing, but with Him...I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13)

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[CreativeLee] What an encouraging story. However, I was more blessed today by Brenda’s perspective. How often do we first pray for calm? I think if we were to approach more things in life in that way we would freak out so much less – we would be in that quiet, confident place of trust so much faster and enabling God to move so much quicker in response to our faith. Our emotions surely do not move Him. Our faith does. But if we are overwhelmed with emotion it is harder to focus on believing instead.

Secondly, she acknowledged GOD’s ability to see and know all things; for HIM nothing is impossible. Her problem was not bigger than her God. Is that the first thing we focus on when we face challenges, or does it take us a while to get around to that bit – after we’ve freaked out and spent hours or days trying everything else besides trusting the Lord? I would most definitely want prayer and faith to be my first response (instead of my last resort) way more of the time.

For God a contact lens might not be a big deal, but Brenda knew well enough that God would care about it because He cares about her – the one to whom the contact lens belonged. Therefore she asked Him plainly and boldly. She didn’t have to pray for three days and fast and ask ten friends. She just uttered a simple request and trusted Him: “Lord you see everything; you know where my lens it. Please help me.”

Then she left it up to Him how he wanted to do it. How He helped her was not her problem, so to speak. That He helped her is what she trusted Him for. We don’t have to come to God with solutions for our problems. We can bring our problem and simply leave it up to Him – obviously obeying for our bits as we are lead by Him – but it is ok to leave the miracle working up to Him.

God is not limited by our ideas of possible solutions. He can do anything He pleases, even use an ant. God’s options are infinite beyond our imaginings.

So right now, if you are trusting God for something, be encouraged to know that He is able to do anything He pleases – no problem of ours is too big for Him, and He loves us. He wants to help us. So choose to have faith and leave the miracles up to Him – just trust and obey!