When I think about how God must see me approaching life, it sometimes might look like a child wanting to dig for buried treasure with a plastic spoon, when God is standing behind me with a giant shovel, waiting for me to ask for His help. My spoon is just chipping away at shallow rocks and dry dirt; it's all so surface-level. When I finally realize I cannot do it alone and I turn to the Heavenly Father, He smiles, excited to help me dig deeper into life and treasure and depth.
I always thought I had my life pretty well planned out. My life knew schedules and timelines and expectations. My years knew events and careers and adventures. My months could speak of goals and deadlines. My days spoke of 30 hours of tasks in only a 24 hour day. My moments felt one thing: depletion. At first glance, I was cool as a cucumber, taking life swiftly and gracefully. Only when you looked a little closer did you realize that I was looking for treasure and depth in life by aggressively trying to remove the dirt with that tiny plastic spoon. I was doing a lot of "stuff," but not accomplishing a great amount. I was chipping away and wearing myself out with striving and there the Lord was, waiting patiently.
The moment I finally decided to reevaluate my situation, I stopped. I was really exhausted and figured there must be a better way to accomplish things in life without running myself ragged. When we stop, we have time to turn around, and when we do, there is God, standing with the proper tools to make finding our treasure a little bit easier. Now, He could easily say "you finally figured out what wasn't working" or "about time," but He doesn't. Instead, He smiles and joins us excitedly when we ask.
What I had to understand, however, when I asked for His help, was that I still wouldn't be carrying the shovel on my own. If I tried to take control of the tool the Lord was providing, I would fall again into exhaustion. That plastic spoon made me exhausted, the shovel would only be worse. After I finally learned to accept help, God let me work alongside Him. Suddenly, we were digging a lot deeper, yet the pace was more relaxed. I could breathe and enjoy the dialogue we were having through this work. Before I knew it, we had uncovered the treasure.
You might think this is the end of the story. They uncovered the treasure, woohoo. What makes it so exciting, however, is that this was one of many treasures I was going to unbury. The Lord congratulated me, and when I turned to look at Him, He smiled again.
If I had kept my head down and ignored the tool that He was trying to give me, I would have still been trying to unbury that treasure for a long time. That may have been the only treasure I would have found if I had done it in my strength, but now, I had My Helper.
"Come, my child, there is more treasure to discover."
