Have you ever gone to the store to buy assembly required furniture, like a bookshelf, entertainment center, or similar-type furniture? I've gotten both of those, plus a dresser for my kids, a crib, changing table, etc. etc.
In recent years, presumably because someone sued some store over their bad back hauling an oversided box to their car, the heavy, awkwardly long boxes filled with wood come with warning labels printed right on the box or pasted on to them in bright yellow or orange. They warn you, the unsuspecting consumer, or teenaged store clerk tasked with getting the purchase to the customer's car that the item cannot be carried by just one person and requires two to carry it. OF COURSE, doing my best Tim Allen grunt imitation, I have on more than one occassion risked hernia and back injury by hauling said box to the front of the store and then on out into the parking lot...without assistance. Yes, it is partially a test of manhood, a challenge to my strength and fortitude (although the label "some assembly required" is perhaps a stronger test of manhood, and certainly a greater test of fortitude) that I must rise up to meet, like when your wife tells you we need to exit now for gas instead of attempting to make it to the next state! But it is more than just a challenge, sometimes it is simply my impatience. I know what I want, the dresser, and it is right here in front of me, and I simply need to get it to the register to purchase it so I can go home and spend the rest of my day attempting to assemble it from instructions written only in ancient Egyptian heiroglyphics. There I stand with debit card in pocket, two free hands and the exact item I need, and yet, the label says two people must carry it and I failed to stop at manpower on my way to the store today to get some temporary labor to assist me in my quest. Store employee? It is usually the third time the cashier repeats the page for "Customer Assistance needed in furniture," that I start attempting to figure out how best to balance the 8 foot x 3 foot x 12" box to the register without taking out the entire glassware department enroute.
That's how I am in life at times too. God's word is full of two-person carry warnings, and yet there I go, trying to do it on my own, ignoring the body of Christ that God has blessed us all with, cause it is a test of my manhood or I'm too impatient, or I lack trust or confidence that God has given you the gifts he has me. Yep, when I ignore God's warnings, I'm selfish, I'm self-centered, and I end up falling far short of the goal. We need each other, God designed it that way! So if you see me walking around with a reverse silhouette of the two-person carry label painted on my eyeglass lenses, it's just so that I can remind myself to see the world as a two-person carry, cause we all know how the poem goes, and when there is only one set of footprints, it is not cause I was carrying him.
Thank God for the Body of Christ and I pray for the patience and courage to work within it as God wills me to each day.
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