Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

What really drives you nuts? I mean, the primal screaming, pigeon kicking, crazy as a loon, toss the computer out the window kind of stuff. Your co-worker is always tapping his pen on his desk, constantly, all day. Your spouse whistles those monotone and no tune sounds while watching television, eating their nightly ice cream, all the time. Your children’s shoelaces are two different colors and are not even tied that well, and they are on the way to church, or school, or a wedding, they don’t care.

I have written before that most acronyms can cover me – OCD, ADD, NCD, SAD, and just plain ODD. The little things that drive me nuts are things like a cabinet door being ajar, someone rubbing the dog’s fur the wrong direction, children who don’t keep their socks pulled up, not having your paper clips separated by jumbo and regular, and on it goes.

Why do we do this? Why do we let these little things bug us when things so much bigger are going on around us? I figure that there is not much I can do to stop the wars around the world. I cannot cure cancer, AIDS or other serious diseases. My mind cannot even comprehend the magnitude of a tsunami, so how can I do anything about one occurring? Heck, I still get lost when I circle the square trying to head out to Lake Dow, and I’ve lived in Henry County for over a decade. So, I guess I let myself worry about the little things that I can handle.

Recently, I found a couple of new scriptures to me that let me see that God was thinking about the ‘small stuff’ way back before I was even around. In Job, we are told “He makes small the drops of water that fall from the clouds as rain.” Bear with me as you imagine what God’s thought must have been. Suppose instead of making the drops of water small (i.e.; raindrops), that rain would fall from the clouds as one huge drop all at one time. Which would you prefer? The gentle pitter-patter of small raindrops or the SPLAT of one huge drop hitting your roof.

The Psalmist also wrote that “I slept, and then I awakened, sustained by God.” We tend to make the assumption that when we sleep that the natural progression is to wake up the next morning. However, once again I see that it is all part of God’s plan that we sleep, then we waken…. if it be part of God’s plan.

So, I figure that God has already figured out the small things of life, so I don’t need to sweat about those. The bigger things I cannot change alone, but the greater community can make change through our votes, through our charitable giving or by our volunteer efforts. Repeat once again, volunteer efforts. As I see it, volunteer efforts are the way Christ wanted Christians to work here in this world. Going about doing good work, helping those in need, giving a smile and encouragement to those who need it, and just taking care of each other without expectation of compensation or receiving something in return.

Don’t sweat the small stuff; God has those under control. Spend your time here on earth doing for others as God asks us to do.

And for today my friends, this has been the gospel according to Jimmy.