A (Real Life) Parable

I walk my dog with some intentional vigor. Early in the morning.

There is a routine. Because I live in Michigan, I start with multiple layers of clothing depending on the weather. Shoes and socks, obviously. A hat, either a stocking cap or a baseball hat comes next. For lots of the year I use a reflective vest since my 6:15 adventure is often before daylight. There is my iPhone to track both miles and (with the flashlight) neighborhood skunks, possum and deer.

And “the bag.” Generally two.

I pick up after my dog does his “job” always.

Earlier this winter I forgot “the bag.” I remembered it just when the dog did his “job.” It was a crisis but not a moral one. I knew no matter what, even if I had to get the car and drive back , I would “bag” the “job.”

But first I would finish the walk all the time wishing I had a neon sign saying, “Yes, I know; I am coming back!” for any neighbor who might have been peering out the window.

Necessity is the mother of invention. A weekly newspaper delivers a paper that lays in people’s driveways… unread… often for weeks. It comes in a plastic bag.

Found one a block over.

Problem solved. “Job” bagged.

Fast forward to this week.

I was a little preoccupied as I got ready to walk the dog. I was cheering, quietly– it was 6:15 in the morning, the warmer weather, deciding how few of layers of clothes I would have to wear and thinking that it was not quite light enough to skip the reflective vest. Internally, I was stewing about the virus crisis and what was or wasn’t being done about it.

I forgot “the bag.”

About half way up the street when I was convincing myself that we are in a lot more of a mess than we think– illness, death, repressive orders, quarantine fatigue, economic disaster, social unrest, I was pulled out of whatever the opposite of a reverie is by the tug of the dog. He had to do his “job.”

Shoot. No bag.

No problem? The unread weekly newspapers in their little plastic sleeves!

But there was a problem. Spring was at hand and all the neighbors had had a chance to clean up the ends of their driveways and those errant papers.

No bags. My clever solution was not clever enough.

God provided. That’s what I think. I am convinced of it.

It was trash day and God had provided a big blow of wind. A couple limbs were down. A few trash cans had been blown over. And around the corner, down the bend, a neighbor’s recyclables were blowing around… including a few grocery bags… Just the “bag” I needed for the “job.” In fact better than what I had in mind.

God provided. He gave me just what was needed to clean up the mess. God did.

And in that I found significant comfort this week. Like the ram for Isaac, like Jesus on the cross*, like a “bag” for the “job,” the Lord provides.

I think we are in a mess. I think we are in a big mess. But we fear not because the Lord provides. God has even this “job” in the “bag.”

What did you find significant this week?

*If you think it is demeaning to compare what God does for us in Jesus to him providing a “bag” for a “job,” you are seriously underestimating what a mess our sin is.