Professional Mover

I am in the moving business, I move stuff around my house all day long.  Dirty laundry to the laundry room, clean laundry to the closet.  Food to the plates, plates to the table, plates to the sink and back into the cupboards.  Toys to the bedrooms.  Schoolwork to its proper place.  I am constantly moving paper.  One time I counted the number of times I handle the groceries before we actually eat them, six times!  Shelf to cart to check out to cart to car to shelf to kitchen counter.  Aaagh!  I guess I should just slap a U-Haul sign on my back.

There are other things I move, more intangible things, but they are far more important than a stray toy I pick up on my way through a room.  Things like my relationships with my friends, and my relationship with my children.  When I make time to be with my friends it moves us closer together and we can encourage one another.  As I take time to really listen to my children it gives me an opportunity to talk to them about what I really care about moving–their hearts toward God.

In all these relationships that is what I really care about: am I moving my heart, my children’s hearts and my friends’ hearts closer to God?  After all, this is the most important thing.  At the end of the day if I have successfully moved all the stuff around my house, things should look fairly clean, but that won’t mean much in eternity.

What about those days when I am tired of moving?  The days when I say, “God, I just don’t have the energy to even get out of my chair much less move another pile of laundry or talk with a stubborn teenager about his attitude.”  Well, it might feel like the teenager has a stone mountain instead of a heart, but in Matthew 17:20 Jesus says if we have faith as small as a mustard seed we can literally move mountains, even ones shaped like teenagers.

I believe God designed us to be movers.  He wants us moving forward in our relationship with Him and with other people.  I think He even wants us moving physical things around and improving our environment.  Like the verse says, I think we just need to have the faith to know we can do it and that of course He will help us.  And on the days when it is hard to have the faith to move anything, I can cry out like the desperate dad who was talking to Jesus in Mark 9:24, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move.  Nothing will be impossible for you.”  Matthew 17:20

“But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”  (The boy’s father said.)  ” ‘If you can’?” said Jesus.  “Everything is possible for him who believes.”  Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”  Mark 9:22b-24