Parallel Parking

I pray about everything – literally everything. Sometimes, I do not even realize that I am doing it.

For example, I find myself praying a lot about parking my car.

“Dear Lord, I pray you find me a parking space that does not require me to look like I am driving a ‘big-rig’ when I am pulling in.”

“Dear Lord, I pray there are more spaces than those that are available for parallel parking.”

“Dear Lord, I don’t care if I have to walk five blocks. I just need a spot where I don’t bump another car while backing up.”

To say the least, I am not the most confident when it comes to parking my car. Therefore, I turn to the Lord for assistance rather than the insurance company because I don’t want to take off someone’s side mirror instead of praying to steady my nerves.

At one point, I was very good at parking – okay, not very good, but good enough that I did not panic when I realized that if I wanted to park by the aquarium, I had to pay the parking meter and get my car parallel to the sidewalk with the appropriate amount of inches away from the curb.  A few years of being able to pull directly into a driveway took away what little bit of practice I had when I initially passed my driver’s test. Without that consistent practice, I had lost the ability to tackle the situation.

Now I live at a location, where parking is always on the street, or I have to park around back and traipse through the backyard to reach the door. So yes, I find myself on a regular basis, walking through mud, snow, and fallen leaves – ruining some nice shoes – just so I do not have to parallel park. It does not seem to matter how many times my umbrella turns inside-out during a storm. I still go the long way around.

We all tend to do things the difficult way, until one day it clicks that if we would just learn the correct way to do the things we are struggling with, life would be so much simpler. Instead of going the long way around in a storm, and letting our man-made umbrellas protect us, we need to go directly to God. His directions are already written down for us to learn and practice daily, so that we may go through the front door instead of the mud.

Joshua 1:8

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

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