Gnats, not elephants

You're out on the deck just trying to relax.  It's a nice day.  And what will most likely bother you the most?  The gnats.  Same thing when you're trying to mow the yard, or have a picnic.  Gnats.  Just plain bothersome gnats that you can't seem to do anything about.

Let's try it again.  You are again out on the deck, same situation.  Do any elephants bother you?  Mowing the yard?  Having a picnic?  Not very likely at all in any of those situations.  In fact, we just don't see that many elephants in the course of our lifetime do we?

But life has it's share of gnats and elephants, metaphorically speaking.  Here's an example of a gnat:  I was going to work early this morning (very minimal traffic) and was approaching an intersection with traffic signals.  A car coming toward me was turning left, and turned the corner in such a manner that the driver was in the wrong lane on the intersecting street and they tripped the signal wire embedded in the street so that I got an unnecessary red light.  I had to stop and wait for the cycle to go through.  It was just me on either of the streets.  And why?  Because of a gnat's stupidity (to me) in how he drove....he cut the corner and made the light change so that I would have to stop.  I had words for that gnat !

There's a whole bunch of gnats out there, all just waiting to "get us".

• maybe it is an obnoxious neighbor
• maybe it's a relative who just kind of grates on you, yet you can't avoid being around him every once in a while
• maybe it's folks who either don't have turn signals (hardly!) or don't use them
• maybe it's folks who drive in the left lane on the freeway at 10 mph under the limit

You name it....there are tons of gnats available to annoy and irritate us.  And we have absolutely no control over them or when they will be around us....just like the gnats at the top of the story.  Isn't it life's gnats that test us the most?  It is life's gnats that bring those words that are hiding in the swear closet out to our mouths.  It is life's gnats that make the middle finger stand erect as we wave at them.  It is life's gnats that bring us down in a real regular fashion, to remind us that yes, we still have some brokenness in us.

What about the elephants?  Life elephants, like life gnats, are also things over which we have no control.  But these are big things...like death of a spouse or a child, catastrophic illness, a serious wreck, getting fired from a job, etc.  We perhaps get tested when we run across a life elephant, but I suggest that it isn't in the same reactionary, and often super angry manner, that we deal with the gnats.  I think most people know that an elephant can come visiting at any given time....maybe.  And while most of us don't prepare ourselves mentally, emotionally, or spiritually for an elephant that may or may not come, generally our reactions to them are much more reserved and thought out.

What can hurt us more as men, husbands, and fathers is how we react to the gnats of life.  They will always be around, they will always be bothersome and pesky, and they will (if we let them) get a reaction from us...perhaps one we are not proud of.  It's the gnats that will take us down, not the elephants.