A little boy was spending his Saturday morning

playing in his sandbox.

He had with him his box of cars and trucks,

his plastic pail,

and a shiny, red plastic shovel.

In the process of creating roads and tunnels

in the soft sand,

he discovered a large rock

in the middle of the sandbox.

The boy dug around the rock,

managing to dislodge it from the dirt.

With no little bit of struggle,

he pushed and nudged the rock

across the sandbox by using his feet.

(He was a very small boy

and the rock was very huge.)

When the boy got the rock

to the edge of the sandbox, however,

he found that he couldn’t roll it up

and over the little wall.

Determined, the little boy

shoved,

pushed,

and pried,

but every time he thought he had made some progress,

the rock tipped and then fell back into the sandbox.

The little boy grunted,

struggled,

pushed,

shoved –

but his only reward

was to have the rock roll back,

smashing his chubby fingers.

Finally he burst into tears of frustration.

All this time the boy’s father watched

from his living room window

as the drama unfolded.

At the moment the tears fell,

a large shadow fell

across the boy and the sandbox.

It was the boy’s father.

Gently but firmly he said,

“Son, why didn’t you use

all the strength that you had available?

Defeated, the boy sobbed back,

“But I did, Daddy,

I did!

I used all the strength that I had!”

“No, son,”

corrected the father kindly.

“You didn’t use all the strength you had.

You didn’t ask me.”

With that the father reached down,

picked up the rock,

and removed it from the sandbox.

Do you have “rocks” in your life

that need to be removed?

Are you discovering

that you don’t have what it takes to lift them?

There is One who is always available to us

and willing to give us the strength we need.

Isn’t it funny how we try so hard

to do things ourselves.

John Leach, from Just a Minute Inspiration

– John Leach