The Tiniest Teacher

A little lady bug on the wall of my kitchen sink caught my eye as I let the hot water run.

Originally doomed to washing dishes, I found a strange joy in setting out to eliminate the pest of interest. I led the faucet over to his resting place, and viciously squirted the contented intruder to the bottom of the sink. I felt a small measure of satisfaction as it squirmed helplessly among the valleys of the sink mat. Dumb bug shouldn’t be in the house anyway.

A little voice whispered unexpectedly in my head and asked me if I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be that bug. I calmly and quickly told my mite of a conscience to stop bugging me. But I looked down just as quickly, and couldn’t help that I humbly saw myself in that bug. Pretty pathetic, isn’t it? I’m going around finding things in common with a bug. But I couldn’t help paralleling my mistakes with the little bugs first mistake of entering my kitchen and second mistake of getting in my sink and in my way.

How many times have I found myself doing something I shouldn’t and before I know it, I’m lost in the forbidden house of my mistakes. It’s a horrible feeling being faced with the consequences that you never thought would catch up with you.

I turned off the water quickly and watched the pool around the bug drain into nothingness. I heard the gurgle of the sink as it swallowed all but the struggling ladybug. It surprised me to see it still hanging on to the dish mat, and the voice in me whispered again to see if I couldn’t imagine myself desperately hanging onto hope when I knew I’d messed up bad and had no one to turn to.

I pityingly reached a finger into the sink, and waited for the bug to crawl onto the flesh of dry freedom. But the bug took a different path, rounding my finger, and barely avoiding a pot hole in the mat. I took another finger and commandingly placed it in front of the him, and was amazed to see that he preferred to detour into a pot hole, rather than accept my once-in-a-life-time mercy. I placed my finger directly in front of the bug, and was pleased to see him struggle up from the valley and onto my finger. A pretty spunky bug if you ask me. He, helpless in my hands, resigned himself from the dish mat’s valley to the steady slope of my finger. I took him outside, gently released him onto a stone in the garden, and felt immense satisfaction at my good deed. But, I couldn’t stop thinking about the audacity of that voice to compare me to a bug. It was hardly a professional evaluation. But it still made me think.

People are funny. We all mess up, and then when someone does something a little dumber than us, we all look at them like somehow we are far above making that same mistake.
We get into some of life’s worst virtual houses and open the door to a world of consequences. And when we are washed away with guilt, it seems there is no one to turn to. But as we struggle through the valley’s of our chosen detour, there is One above, who is offering a steady hand of mercy. No one deserves to be rescued from their sin. But God still offers a way of escape.

Most people will gladly look down that sink at the hurting individual and think, “Hah, they deserve it. Let them wallow in their own mess.” But we are all in the same sink, a dish-washing opportunity away from meeting our own just deserves.

I don’t know how many times I’ve dipped as low as I can go, until I finally look up to Jesus, and give it all over to Him. He is always there for me, just like he is always there for you. Never lose hope. If you think He’s trying to kill you, let me assure you he’s nothing like me. If he was, we’d all be in a heap of hot water.

I know a guy right now, who messed up big and really regrets it. I’ve been like everyone else and looked down on him. I’ve treated him like dirt. Ironic: a bug treating someone like dirt.
But now, as I think on it, I know I was wrong. Wrong to doom him forever to a life of mistakes. Wrong to lift myself up and tell myself he deserved going down with his bad choices.
Everybody messes up, and at one point or another in our lives, every one of us gets burned, but no one - NO ONE is beyond hope. The more mistakes you make, the more mercy God offers.

I can’t be glad for my friend when he goes down. I can only listen to Christ in me, and offer my hand, or a finger if it helps, and hope he’ll take it. I have not lost hope in him. I only lost my faith in Him.

It’s rather humbling to realize that I needed the tiniest of teachers - a simple bug to help point my self-righteous eyes to the real Judge in life. If He can have mercy on me, He can have mercy on anyone.

So wherever you are in life, look up, have faith, and from one bug to another - even in darkest of times, never give up.