Let Me Notice You

Dear Church Family,

Our laundry room door wouldn’t shut. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to “fix” a door, but as it turns out, this is not an easy task. But last weekend, while Kristen was on the Women’s Retreat, I decided to give it a try.

I began where all good DIY projects start: I bought a power tool. An orbital sander to be precise. (I would have consulted with Kristen, but I didn’t want to disturb her retreat, obviously.) 

Then I carefully studied where the door was sticking. I tried to tighten the hinges, but that didn’t work. Clearly, I needed to sand down the top edge of the door where it was hitting the jamb. After removing the door, I took it to the garage to sand down the edge. Everything was laid out perfectly on my sawhorses. I drew my lines on the edge and used the sander to take it down to the right size. Then I brought the door back into the house.

The first thing I noticed when I started to hang it back up was that the bottom edge of a door looks exactly like the top edge. And it’s possible that one might sand the bottom edge thinking it was the top. Which is exactly what I had done. So, it was back out to the garage to work on the right part of the door.

I’ll cut to the chase: it took 5 different trips of taking the door back and forth, sanding it down, and trying it all over again before I finally got it to fit. I’m sure there was a smarter way to do this, but in the end, I had a door that closed – kind of. It still stuck a little. But after 5 trips, I was ready to be done.

But over the last few days, I’ve noticed that the door has adjusted and now it closes completely, without any resistance.

How strange it is, that few things go exactly how we plan them to. I thought this was going to be a quick fix. It ended up taking several hours of trial and error. And even when it was done, it wasn’t perfect. But in the end, things adjusted, a little grace showed up, and the door finally worked. Through some combination of my efforts and the house “settling,” it all came to fit.

In Kate Bowler’s blessing, For This Ordinary Day, she writes:
     Lord, here I am.
     How strange it is,
     That some days feel like hurricanes
     And others like glassy seas
     And others like nothing much at all 
     …
     Ordinarily, I might not think of you [God] at all.
     Except, if you don’t mind, let me notice you.

In our lives, we sometimes sand the wrong end of the door. We wrestle with a problem or a person and realize we aren’t seeing the whole picture. We struggle to make a change in our lives to bring in more God and end up having to go back and sand the rough edges down – time and time again. We feel as though we aren’t making any progress and the door still sticks. But then we notice that things somehow fell into place. We see that God did show up, the Holy Spirit was at work, and even our mistakes have become part of the beautiful way that God works in our lives.

Too often I’m trying to control the project. But I think the Holy Spirit is always trying to remind me that God is in the process. And when I take time to notice God, I discover that I don’t need to worry as much about the outcome. 

God is constantly trying to bring forth the goodness and hope God has for our lives. The Holy Spirit joins us for all the messy life projects we encounter today, this week, and in every ordinary moment. Our job is not to force the results. Our relationship with God simply calls us to notice.

God, let me notice you today, this week, and in all the moments of life.

with God's peace,
Pastor Karl