The devil is in the details

I had not even noticed how my time had been spent from 9:55am to 10:05am.  Mom and I were on our way to church.  That morning, our pastor was preaching about anger, about the foolishness of how our need for hurry causes ridiculous anger, and this plague of hurrying, (not his exact words), has its root in selfishness.  “In your anger, do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry and do not give the devil a foothold.”  (Ephesians 4:26,27). 

I envisioned a ‘slowed-down’ version of me helping my Mom put on her winter coat, not even 50 minutes before his message.  I am always in such a big rush to get out that door.  So, of course, I force my Mom to go faster.  But she cannot. 

She cannot, because she gets stuck in the smallest of details, like pushing her hand past the ribbing at the end of her coat sleeve, or fumbling with a zipper that is now too complicated for her to manage or trying to get her hood on because she absolutely hates the wind.  And I know all of these things.  If only I would slow down.  But I cannot.

I cannot, because I will not.  I am in too much of a hurry, which ultimately means that, as our pastor said: “It’s all about me.”  If I had planned just a little differently, I would have had time to chat with Mom as I helped her with her coat.  We could joke about the weather, and talk about the days when she taught in a one-room schoolhouse with a pot-bellied stove and a little boy whose dog followed him into that same schoolhouse on a blustery, cold winter’s day.  And oh, does she ever love to tell that story!  Her face lights up and she gets so excited that half-way through, she switches from English to French, and then back to English.

The devil, as they say, is in the details. I allow him to shatter my day with little frustrations and minutiae about unimportant matters.  I refuse to see interruptions as God’s means of grace to me; as His means of taking the time to help my Mom push her hand through that sleeve and hear her say, “that’s what I needed, a little push,” and her tinkling laughter at her own little joke.

We all have an average of twelve to sixteen breaths per minute; I plan on using mine more wisely.  By God’s grace, I pray that I will not, and therefore, cannot, be hurried along at the expense of someone else’s joy or at someone else’s pain; nor do I want ungodly anger to be a hallmark of my days.

The devil is in the details.  But so is God, and He is greater than the devil. 

“Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”

(1 John 4:4)