The Shovel

We braced ourselves for the Nor’easter that was to arrive.
The weather reports told us the amount of snow expected.
The weather reports showed the path of the storm.
There were actually two storms that were expected to meet.

It was the where and when of their meeting that would determine the storm’s severity.
My husband was away on business.
My youngest daughter was home for her spring break.
The rest of my family checked in with each other, before, during, and after the storm.

People go into panic mode when snow is expected to come.
People joke about getting milk and bread, but the hysteria is true.
Anyone who has experienced a snowstorm knows how quickly the shelves empty.
People prepare just in case the power goes out, which it so often happens in these storms.

The school districts closed for a snow day.
Flights were cancelled at the airport.
Public transit was on a weekend schedule but still running sporadically.
Trash and recycling pickup was delayed for a day.

Sometimes it is nice to be snowbound.
You are able to catch up on some reading.
You sit lazily in front of the fire and enjoy the stillness.
The rest is forced upon you but you are grateful.

I knew that the man who plows our driveway would be coming.
I hired a young man who is also home on his spring break to shovel our walkways.
It was so cold and the snow was so heavy.
I made him some hot chocolate as I handed him the money for his hard work.

He shoveled the front walkway and the back walkway.
He shoveled out a large square on my deck outside my back kitchen door.
He even shoveled about a foot out from each of our three garage doors.
I thought that would be enough to accommodate the snowplow.

He left with his gloved hands holding his insulated cup of hot chocolate.
We talked about his first year of college.
He is an economics major.
I made him smile when I told him our country needs him to help solve our economic problems.

I was so grateful to him for helping me.
He headed home.
My daughter and I had a cup of tea by the fire.
It was then I heard the snowplow.

I was glad that the snow would be plowed before the temperatures went down overnight.
After I heard the truck leave, I went outside to look at all the snow.
The garage doors that had been shoveled out about a foot from the doors, were plowed in again.
I looked at the piles and groaned.

If it was the light powdery snow, I could have shoveled it or pushed it away.
However, this was the heavy snow that sleet and freezing rain packed down even more.
This snow was immovable for me.
I knew my back, which is not the strongest part of me anyway, would suffer if I tried.

I sent a text to the young man and his mother as well.
I knew that he was needed to shovel his own walkways at home.
He came back to shovel out the garage doors that he had just shoveled.
There was not a hint of annoyance, there was just a willingness to help and to serve.

Isn’t that the way it always goes?
You get dressed to go out and the baby spits up on your shoulder.
You just washed the kitchen floor and someone comes traipsing through with muddy shoes.
You just cleaned the kitchen after a meal and someone drops a glass of milk on the floor.

In the grand scheme of things, none of these incidents are terribly significant.
However, many of these things all lumped together are quite frustrating.
It feels as if you are running on a hamster wheel and can never get anywhere.
It feels as if you are spinning your wheels with nothing to show for your effort.

Sometimes the frustration is worse than the job itself.
Sometimes you end up doing the job twice.
One time you do the actual work; the second time you clean up the work already done.
That’s they was things go down here.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

Frustration and weariness are not only experienced when we do our own work.
Frustration and weariness can happen when we do God’s work as well.
Kingdom work that should bring us such joy, often brings us frustration.
Usually, it is because we are doing that Kingdom work in our own strength.

God’s work always entails working with people.
People are messy.
You and I are messy.
We do not come in a nicely wrapped package with instructions.

We are impatient.
We are unpredictable.
We are stubborn.
We are selfish.

Even when we set out to do the best work for God’s Kingdom, we bring our ego to the task.
Even when we think we have pure motives for doing what we do, we want recognition.
Even when we try to please God, we still look around to see who sees what we are doing.
Even when we say we are serving Him, we are subtly serving ourselves.

The sin nature that is in each of us often rears its ugly head.
Just when we thought we cleared it away, the plow shovels it all back again.
Just when we thought the path was clear, something happens to block our way.
We need the piles of sin shoveled away permanently.

There is only one way to remove those piles of sin.
We need to look to the cross of Jesus.
We need to see Jesus suffering in our place, laying down what He wanted for His Father’s will.
Looking to Jesus will remove the importance of self every time.

Not as I will but as You will.
Jesus is our model.
Jesus’ selflessness for our sake crushes our pride every time.
Jesus permanently shovels away our sin so that the Father sees the perfection of His Son.

That’s the way it goes down here.
Frustration abounds.
When we trust in Jesus alone and not in ourselves for our salvation, we are forgiven.
Sin has been shoveled away, removed, as far as the east is from the west.

That is a reason to praise.
We still are tempted here; we will still sin this side of heaven.
However, we know where to run so we can ask forgiveness.
We know Who is holding the shovel.