You’ve no doubt gotten that shopping cart. You know the one. It’s that cart that has a messed up wheel and goes “clunk, clunk, clunk” as you speed down the store isles embarrassed and frustrated at your luck for having picked out a crappy, clunky shopping cart.
How could it happen? Maybe you just didn’t check out the wheels well enough before you rushed into the store to take care of your business. Maybe God has it in for you today! Maybe all the carts in this store have messed up wheels.
Whatever the reason, if you are like me, you’re hoping nobody sees (or even worse, hears) you. But you are sure that everyone in the store will look up at you when they hear you coming from twenty feet away. Those stares are terrifying.
What are your options? You start putting more pressure onto one side of the cart in hopes that you will counter-balance the “clunk” but that’s no good. When nobody’s looking, you creep to a remote spot of the store and lift the cart off the ground before dropping it to hopefully break loose the clunk culprits. You do it a couple of times just in case the first time didn’t do the trick.
Don’t let the “clunky carts of life” distract you from pursuing God’s will for your life. Photo Credit: Molly Des Jardin via Compfight cc
It works neither time. Stupid clunky cart!
So you briefly consider leaving the cart and going back to the front of the store to get another and hope this cart do-over won’t be quite as clunky. No way that’s gonna happen though. That’s a lot of walking. So you do the only thing you can do. You keep going with your cart clunking all the way. As you shop, you keep an eye out for an abandoned empty cart to make a fair switch.
But when you find that orphaned shopping cart that’s yours for the swapping, you can’t help but consider why it is there. Did someone else have a clunky cart they left? Could it be any worse than the one you have now?
Why is this clunky cart keeping you from your purpose?
You came into the store to do some shopping. You probably had a list or at least an agenda of what you wanted to do. But you have spent so much time dealing with this clunky cart that somehow entered into your life, you’ve wasted so much time and energy that you’ve forgotten why you came to the store in the first place. To shop.
Ever stop to consider why this cart is distracting you from the matter at hand? One night at a store, I got a doozy of a cart. Before I knew it, I was mad at the store owners for having such a cart in their fleet.
But then I thought about it.
Why is this cart distracting me and why am I so mad?
It’s because I think it makes me feel and look stupid. As if people are peering at me with their judgmental gazes and thinking to themselves that I am too dumb to pick out a good cart!
What do I care? Clunk happens, I guess.
Don’t let the “clunky carts of life” distract you from pursuing God’s will for your life.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. ~ John 14:27