I woke up the other morning with a grand plan to fill only a single half hour of the entire day. I didn’t know what else to do. What I was supposed to, what God was asking me to do, what I was expected to do, what I ought to do.
The dog was whining in the garage. His name is Titus. When he gets in trouble, they call him Titus Philemon Hebrews James. I figured he wanted out of the garage. Thus the whining. So, I let him out.
And then forgot to put him back in again.
Titus Philemon Hebrews James is the sort of dog who runs away when you forget to put him back in.
Which is what I remembered when Aime came home from taking the kids to school. The bad news is he runs away. The good news is he always runs away to the same couple spots. Aime hopped back in the van to find the dog. I grabbed my coat and shoes and went outside. Then I stopped. There wasn’t really anything I could do. I didn’t know Titus’s favorite places to run away to. Besides, Aime had the van. She’d find him a lot faster than I would.
I went back inside.
I felt a lot like I had when I woke up that morning. Pointless. Directionless. Useless.
That’s when Aime called. She was on a schedule and hadn’t found the dog. Would I mind awfully much going for a walk to track him down? “Oh,” I said to God. “So, after I figure out that I can’t do anything, then You give me a job to do, huh?”
I grabbed my shoes and coat and the leash and the zapper thing for the electric collar, and stepped outside. I was going prepared. To go on a walk, to whistle my head off, to search for the dog I’d lost. I had my objective and my tools and my plan. I had something I could do.
I got as far as the end of the driveway before I found him. Trotting back to the house, trying to wag his tail while holding it between his legs, looking rather ashamed of himself, and peering at me like he hoped I wouldn’t be angry enough to zap him.
All I had to do was stand in the driveway.
“They that wait on the Lord . . .” God keeps saying to me. Over and over again. “Wait on the Lord.”
So, I am waiting. Asking Him to do His work. To move the minds I can’t change, the prayers I can’t pray, the hearts I can’t call, the place I can’t prepare. To let Him do what only He can do while I go out and stand at the end of the driveway.
