Stop and Remove the Pebble from Your Shoe
May 6, 2020
By Karen Makishima, Director of Family life Ministries
Some of us on the First Prez staff are on a 30-day online retreat called Ascending with Ignatius led by Mark Edward Thibodeaux. It embraces the guidelines of St. Ignatius, who was a priest and theologian in the 1500’s. St. Ignatius developed spiritual exercises like the Daily Examen that we still use today to help us reflect more on God and be drawn closer to Him.
Day 2 of the retreat takes a look at the book of Genesis, where we find God creating the universe, the world, and humankind, and then declaring His creation as very good. Genesis 3 even implies that God would go regularly to the garden He created to spend time with Adam and Eve, indicating that God created humans to be in close relationship with Him and with each other.
But instead of us enjoying this intimacy with God, humanity’s response to Him, more often than not, is rebellion. We get stuck in our sins and become captives separated from our Creator. We cannot run “the good race for Christ” (2 Timothy 4) if sin is holding us back.
Mark Thibodeaux says, “Sin is like a pebble in our shoe.” We have to remove the pebble. Otherwise we will not be able to run the race well.
I wonder if God is using this time of COVID-19 to bring us out of our busy routines and schedules that draw us away from Him – to take those pebbles out of our shoes. Many of us are so caught on life’s wheel of too much work, Netflix, fine foods, sports, academia, shopping, etc. that we leave no space to walk with God. As a result, our relationships have been deprived of care and attention, including our relationship with our Creator.
Jeremiah 29: 11 - 14
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.
Those verses remind us that God has a plan to prosper us. He wants to restore our marriages, and our relationships with family & friends. He wants to restore our health, our joy, and restore shalom (Hebrew for peace) in our homes. And most of all He wants to restore our relationship with Him but we need to be willing to spend time with Him.
This is God’s promise to me: when I call on Him and seek Him with all my heart, He will find me and bring me out of captivity. It is His promise for you too.
I pray that this time of sheltering in place would be a time of removing the pebbles from our shoes so that we can run the race with joy.
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