Life Under Construction
Summer in the Midwest can bring many things including heat, drought, brown grass and extreme quick weather changes. Often the weather men will predict hot sunny days and then a cool front will pass through with gusty winds and driving rain. Other times they predict rain and we get days and days of sun blistering the grass and causing plants to wilt. But there is one thing we can always depend on....orange barrels!
We have come to call this time of year, not summer, but orange barrel season. Here in Toledo, we have numerous, large, road construction projects going on at the same time. My husband and I have lamented over whose idea it is to do construction on all the north-south roads at the same time, or the east-west roads, or it seems, all the roads going anywhere. Currently there is a massive construction project going on just around the corner from where we live. Traffic is almost always backed up and no matter where we go, there are pesky orange barrels.
Sometimes it seems that our lives are as much like a construction zone, filled with annoying barrels, as those streets we drive on. When I look at the construction going on, especially when they are reconfiguring major on/off ramps and moving bridges, I am amazed that the engineers have a plan. For such a long time it looks like a big mess; moving dirt here, tearing up large pieces of concrete there, cranes, bulldozers, dump trucks, noise, noise, noise, noise, noise. Eventually it begins to looks like it makes sense. A pile of dirt turns into the foundation for the future ramp. Those large chunks of concrete disappear and are replaced with steel beams for a new bridge. After time, like a butterfly making it's way out of a cocoon, the new ramps are finished and paved with smooth black pavement and the bridge is securely in place able to hold it's own weight and that of a million moving cars.
I don't know about you, but sometimes I wonder just what the engineer of this life is all about. Life looks more like the chaos of broken pavement and piles of dirt than it does smooth, newly finished pavement. God doesn't have to ask me what my opinion is. He is the master engineer, after all. However, there are times, when I look at the brokenness of the world we live in, even the brokenness of my own life and I wonder, what is He doing? Then I start giving me opinion:
"Wouldn't that pile of dirt look better over there?"
"Shouldn't you use that broken concrete as part of the foundation for the bridge? We are into recycling, you know!"
"Don't you think you could get some quieter machinery to do the work?"
As if I could walk into the engineers meeting for the highway department and begin to tell them how to improve their roads and highways. I do not have an engineering degree and know absolutely nothing about building bridges, unless they are made of blocks or Legos. Why then, do I think I know how to run my life? I did not create life. God did. I did not form a planet out of nothing or breath life into dust. Only an almighty God can do that. So simply put, He knows better than I how to construct a life. Sometimes He may dig and tear. Sometimes He may grind and pound, but He knows what He is doing.
“For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”
He has it all figured out. Just like I trust those engineers to build a bridge that will not collapse the first time I drive over it, I also must trust God that He is doing what is best in my life and in the lives of those I love. I am not sure why this is so hard, but think about it. God is the one who gave those engineers the ability to design plans to build roads and overpasses and bridges. So if the same God who made men with minds that can create amazing things has a plan for my life, shouldn't I believe Him? Shouldn't I trust Him?
Whatever mess you might find yourself in, take a deep breath. He's got this and He's got you! He desires to give you a future and a hope. There will always be orange barrels, but I feel better knowing that He's got my life in His hands.