Rock in the Sandbox
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