A man leaving work wheeled a wheelbarrow with a shoe box in it to the front gate. The guard asked what was in the shoe box. The worker told him sawdust. The worker lifted the lid on the shoe box to reveal the sawdust inside.

For the next seven days the same worker wheeled a wheelbarrow with a shoe box in it to the front gate. Every day the worker told the guard the shoe box was full of sawdust. On the eighth day the guard got suspicious.

“You’ve been leaving work every day with a shoe box in your wheelbarrow. I think you might be stealing something.” The guard made the worker show him the sawdust again.

“Tell me what you’re stealing,” the guard said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Wheelbarrows” said the worker.

How many times do we focus on the  little things, insignificant things, and fail to see the big picture? I’m guilty of that. I can get so wrapped up in details and minutia that I miss the big picture. That flaw might be the source of the phrase, “The devil’s in the details.”

The Pharisees had shoe boxes full of sawdust. They didn’t grasp the big picture. One day Jesus entered the synagogue and saw a man there with a withered hand.

“the Pharisees asked Jesus, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?’  He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? ¹How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. ^‘But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, ho w to destroy him.” Matthew 12:10-14

They missed the big picture. The Son of Man, God Incarnate, performed a miracle before their eyes, in the house where healing should be a blessing and cause for celebration and praising God!

My heart’s desire is to stop focusing on my shoe boxes and focus on the wheelbarrows. When I take my focus off my problems, my mistakes, my circumstances, my failures and  focus on God’s continuous love for me, His presence, His provision and His protection, I free myself from the minutia and so easily invades my walk with the Father.

How about you? Are there any shoe boxes in your wheelbarrows today?