A couple of weeks ago, I was walking my dog on the loop that goes near our complex. Nestled behind the complex next to mine is a low wooded area that holds a tiny man-made pond. Residents of my neighbor complex can look out and see all this nature instead of the road that’s behind it. There’s a path that takes you past the bench if you want to go around the building.
But the developers miscalculated where the bench should be. So, when it rains a lot, this happens — I snapped the photo the day after a storm.
Have you ever felt like you’re sitting on this bench? Surrounded by trouble with no other choice but to soak in it?
To the world, it can look gritty. How brave the person is, the crowd will crow, to sit in the trouble! How good it is that God brings His refining storms!
At least, that’s what people have said to me from their place on the dry land. A few kinder ducks, like the one that waddled around on my walk, paddle themselves out to survey. But after a while, they waddle or fly back to shore, and there I still have sat in the mess of it, with what’s most blatantly broken in front of me.
It can wear on a person. Underneath, where no one can see, the trouble can weaken them and make them more prone to break. They can wonder where God is and why they are in the trouble, and it can feel like the trouble will never recede, even when the drying of Noah’s waters is in their head. In the worst of it, they can blame God for the storm and lose faith.
But sometimes, as it was with Elijah, God is not in the storm. Sometimes, in the chaos, He’s on the bench, next to where you are. And in a still, small voice, He asks you what you two times why you are where you are — once to ask what you need and listen to what is happening to you, and once to ask why you are not where His job for you is.
The waters do recede. It’s easier to get off the bench when they do. But if God asks you why you haven’t left yet and everything is still all wet, don’t be afraid of the water. Peter learned not to be (Matthew 4:35-41, John 21:1-7). Trust He’ll help you swim or wade back out to where He needs you. He’s ready with a towel. You just have to get up.