I’m always amazed how the most mundane activities can remind me of some truths about God. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because it says in Romans 1:20:

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,

have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,

in the things that have been made.

So we should be able to look at the world around us and see reminders of who God is and how he works in our lives.

That’s exactly what happened as I was working on snow removal recently. We didn’t have much snow – mostly just a dusting – but I had to drive over it on my way to a meeting and back, and wasn’t able to clear the snow first.

For anyone who knows me, this is almost a cardinal sin. The last thing I want to do is try to remove snow that’s been packed down and turned into ice. So, I shoveled the parts that hadn’t been driven over (easy peasy) and sprinkled snow melt on the tire tracks.

It was a nice sunny day so I figured the combination of the melt and the sun would take care of things. It took quite a bit of scraping and reapplication of the snow melt, but eventually the drive was reasonably clear. The areas that got the most sun cleared almost immediately. The others needed a bit more treatment and muscle.

Why share this mundane narrative with you?

Because God shared some important truths about himself and the Christian walk through this ordinary winter activity.

Humor me a bit here as it might be a stretch! Here’s how the analogy played out in my mind.

• The driveway in its pre-snow condition represents the Christian life when we are walking (mostly) in God’s will and without major trials.
• The light, non-packed snow represents minor changes that we need to make on our Christian walk. You could even say that they are adjustments we (think we) can make with our without God’s help.
• The packed snow represents the areas where we struggle mightily with deep, hurtful challenges.
• The snow melt represents our efforts to fix these deep-seated hurts in our own strength, or in ways that aren’t God-honoring.
• The sun, of course, represents the true SON – Jesus.

So, now that we have all those “quirky” representations made, here’s what the narrative looks like, using the driveway analogies as our visual.

We go our merry way, living a Christian life that’s mostly trial-free. (It happens!) Then we hit a season where challenges, both big and small, begin to taint our walk. Our first inclination is to fix these troubles in our own strength. (non-packed-down snow)

Our sin of spending too much time on social media sites is one that we are able to address pretty quickly. We set up a timer on our device and when it warns us, we shut things down. We weren’t really addicted to it in the first place. Now we’re back to that “driveway-clean” life.

But now we are blind-sided by a group of friends who say all kinds of hurtful things about us, behind our backs, and we are devastated by their betrayal. As we try to defend ourselves and hurl accusations back at them, things just get worse. We know we should forgive them, but, honestly, they just don’t deserve it. (pressure-packed, icy snow)

Nothing we do or say seems to bring any reconciliation to the situation because, deep down, we don’t believe we did anything to deserve this. We have other friends who appreciate us! (additional treatment needed for this difficult situation)

As the days and weeks pass, and we have time to reflect on the situation, we realize we never even asked God to help us. Not even a basic prayer. Our reaction was the opposite of how Jesus would have wanted us to respond. The whole “turn the other cheek” and “count others better than ourselves” thing wasn’t on our radar.

Reset! (let the sun/Son do the ultimate, effective work)

We stop, ask God for his forgiveness in how we handled this hurt, perhaps acknowledging the part we played in it, and then sincerely apologize to our group. Let them know how much we love them, and that we hope we can maintain the friendships. (clean driveway)

Prepare for the next snowfall. There’s always one on the way!

None of the above is easy. In fact, most of it is quite impossible without God giving us the strength and the “want to” and Jesus showing us the way. Which is really the whole point of this little adventure!

You just got a glimpse into how my brain sometimes works when God says he’s got an idea for me, and it’s related to my snow removal. I just go with it!

May you find a tidbit or two that helps you appreciated the true power of the Son.

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves

to claim anything as coming from us,

but our sufficiency is from God.

2 Corinthians 3:5