Love Your Ordinary: Help

[pinit]

Last week, I was stuck in the end of my driveway for 45 minutes. Yes, this was a different situation than the time I left the driveway with a high-fiveing front bumper.

For a half hour I alternated between spinning my tires until the air reeked of rubber and hacking away at the ice and snow around my tires and bumper with a rusty shovel.

Kedron was out of town. I looked up and down my street and knew by the dark houses the only neighbors home were physically unable to help.

I would’ve cried if it weren’t for the fact that tears would have frozen to my eyelids only further complicating my current situation. I thought of leaving the car at the end of the driveway, but most of it hung in the street like a worm on a hook inviting disaster.

I slammed the gas pedal again and prayed for help. There was no way I was getting out of this alone.

Soon after my hyper-ventilated-prayer, a delivery truck came up the hill. “God’s driving a truck today!” I thought to myself.

Alas, the truck skirted around me without so much as a glance my direction in not-good-samaritan form.

I hacked at the ice, then hit the gas again, with one eye on the hill, hoping for another car.

Nothing. No one. Help was not coming. Hope would’ve vaporized, but even vapors turn to ice in this weather.

Breathing deeply to submerge the rising panic, I continued to pray. I stopped all my trying-to-no-avail and pressed my forehead to the steering wheel. In the quiet pause, a name popped into my head.

I remembered the neighbor who lives behind me was possibly home. He wouldn’t have seen my predicament. I shook feeling back into my fingers to dial his number.

The phone rang and rang and just when I thought I would get voicemail, he picked up.

“Hi, it’s Amelia. Are you by chance home?”

He said he was, I explained how I’d been stuck at the end of my driveway for about a half hour and asked if he might be able to come help me.

He drove around the corner hauling more shovels, and said, “Oh you really are stuck.” That made me feel a little better.

We spent another 15 minutes shoveling, spinning my tires, and pushing the car (well, him, not me) until finally I gained traction.

I nearly cried with thankfulness, but I didn’t want to put my neighbor in the awkward spot of dealing with a weeping woman with icy eyes.

I often want God to swoop in with flashing lights and bravado. Checks that match the unexpected health bill to the dollar amount. The person who called because she “just knew” you were having a bad day. The big, open door that you’ve prayed for and it “just happens.” I love stories of burning bushes and parted seas where God shows up big time.

Yet, I think often in our ordinary, God appears in a small, still voice. A whisper to remember something. A name. A prompt.

While fleeing an evil queen, and fearing for his life, the prophet Elijah sought the Lord’s help.

Then He {the Lord} said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake;and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
1 Kings 19:11-13

I want to hear the still, small voice. I don’t want to be so caught up waiting for huge miracles that I miss the small, every day ways He helps us. I don’t want to be so busy, so frantic, so worried, so caught up in me that I forget to listen.

Let’s remember to create quiet pauses throughout the day – in the midst of chaos, frustrations, hurt, desperation, or loneliness – to seek God’s help and listen for the small, still voice.

How do you create quiet pauses to seek God in the midst of your day?