Many years ago I remember a very dear friend popping his head round the door of my office as if it were yesterday. He asked me gently for a stapler which I gladly gave him. It’s in these small moments of friendship that we come together, as it were. Small ordinary moments in our everyday lives of kindness, of sharing what we have. God is like that; a friend who will gladly lend you his stapler to help you join together parts of your life that have somehow come apart. He doesn’t try and fob you off with a paper clip or a hole punch, he gives you a stapler. It doesn’t sound much does it, but, well I mean how many staplers does God have? And do we return them? Think about it. If we don’t might he run out? You see God has as many staplers as we need even if we don’t return them, but when we do he is grateful. It probably means just one less trip to office supplies. And if we don’t he will forgive us if we ask him. That’s the beauty of God; he lends and he doesn’t get angry or upset even if we go back time and time again. But that was a long time ago and God changes as all things change. In these days of e-mails and Facebook we don’t go to him for staplers anymore. Somehow we’ve forgotten how useful they are, how central they were to us. People laugh, we think we’re modern, we don’t need them anymore but there comes a time in all our lives where nothing else will do. And it’s then that God is there for us holding in his gentle outstretched hand. A stapler.
No comments:
Post a Comment