Its always interesting when I feel inspiration from the Spirit while doing something mundane like... putting together a piece of exercise equipment. While opening the massive package that this elliptical machine, I saw all these different parts and thinking "this part goes here and that goes there."
While I might have had an idea where these particular pieces went, there is really know way I could have known how to put them together without looking at the construction instructions and reading through them carefully. If I didn't understand something, I had to make sure that I read it multiple times, to make sure that I really knew what it was I was supposed to do so as to properly put all these pieces together and make the equipment functional.
Another thing that stuck me is that the instructions specifically said "you cannot do this alone." Well... it actually said that it was a two person job, but I think the point is there.
We cannot just go at life alone. We may think that we know how to put all the things in our life together and that we can handle its construction on our own, but that isn't the way it is. We as Christians have the unique gift of being able to go through life with our guide and help, who is also our creator. God knows what His plans for our life are... and He knows how to put the events of our life together so that we turn out just the way He wants us! Construction with the designer as it were... and we have the promise that "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28.
I have found this to be very true with my life, this experience being just one more reminder! We don't necessarily know where our lives will take us... I sure didn't... but now that I know and have realized and accepted God's calling on my life, I look back and think about all the time I have "wasted." I have realized that all these things are part of the culmination of who I am now! That this "wasted time" was simply me trying to put my life together by myself. Futile? very... waste? not at all... God continues to use these experiences to help me help others.
Whats more... God has brought me back from these things and has brought me into the light, His calling on my life, and led me towards wonderful things to come! The construction of my life has re-begun (though not nearly close to being finished) and is coming a long quite smoothly! Praise God!
"you cannot do this alone"
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pretty sure you are talking about God, but check out this quote from "The Four Loves" by none other than C.S. Lewis:
Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good
Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing. At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside. Let us not reckon without our Host.