Do I Have Egg on My Face?

This morning, I was fixing a simple breakfast which included scrambled eggs.  As I smacked the first egg on the edge of the counter, it didn't crack.  I smacked it harder and a small crack appeared.  After the third whack on the counter, the shell finally broke.  "Man," I said to myself, "that was a hard shell."  The second egg was exactly the same. It took three tries to break the silly thing.  By the third egg, I had learned my lesson.  I forcefully whacked the egg, the shell breaking into a million pieces and egg running everywhere.  The shell of the third egg was paper thin.  It would have broken under a mild squeeze.

I see a couple of valuable lessons in this story. (Hey, at least something good can come from the mess I made.)  First off, how often are we like the first two eggs with shells that seem impenetrable?  How many times does God have to "smack us on the counter" before we'll break?  You see, while God does want what's best for us, sometimes that requires us to first reach a place of brokenness.  But like the eggs, we don't want to be broken.  We don't want to release everything that we've been keeping inside.  We're fearful of the change that will take place once we're broken.  And so, we resist.

The second thing I took away from the morning mess was a reminder of Proverbs 3:5:  Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  This morning, I was leaning on my own understanding, and it led to disaster.  Through my flawed thinking, I assumed that since the first two eggs had been difficult to crack, the third would be the same way.  It wasn't.  I made a decision based on faulty conclusions just like I often do in life.  I study the situation and act in a way that makes sense to me.  The problem is that God's ways don't always make sense, and because of that, I often ignore them and go about things the way I see fit.  The result?  You guessed it -- egg everywhere!

If you think about it, the two lessons actually go together rather well.  If we're trusting in the Lord and not leaning on our own understanding, we won't be so hard-shelled to begin with.  We'll allow the Lord to break us because we'll trust that He knows best.  So what's it going to be -- trust in the Lord or egg on the face. . .and the counter. . .and the floor. . .?

***Excerpt from Daily Discussions of a Doubting Disciple***