Give me a good old fashioned paper towel any day of the week. Hand Dryers suck. But let me not get ahead of myself. Unduly, that is..
There are points in my life when nothing could be more inconvenient than having to stop what I'm doing in order to take a restroom break. Peanut Gallery Detour: In my younger days, I was that kid who put off making a pitstop until the absolute last possible moment. I was that kid who just didn't have time to take care of business unless in emergency situations (secret time: which is normally to say I pushed my bladder's limits: end of secret time); I was a busy guy. In retrospect, I can see now that I was gravely mistaken concerning my perception of busy. The six, seven, and even eight year old versions of me had no idea what the term "busy" could entail. Regardless, it wasn't a rarity to push myself to the point of frantic panic. I've changed my ways now; promise. :P
With that mild digression out of the way....
Back to hand dryers: Even more aggravating than having to take a bathroom break is having to dry one's hands with an electric hand dryer afterward. I loathe hand dryers; particularly the low air-output type.
As it would happen, just a few minutes ago, I was forced to put down my Bible study in order to take one of said detours, and upon attempting to dry my hands, I was faced with my arch nemesis; a particularly difficult specimen of hand dryer that has an air output analogous to a two year old attempting to blow out her birthday candles, with the heat output that draws certain parallels to the radiant heat of a table top.
Now, the only thing worse than having to wait on your hands to dry underneath such a specimen, is to go about your day with wet hands. So one naturally dries one's hands, in, if I might add, pure and righteous contempt. After conceding to dry one's hands, the temptation is nearly always to rush through the drying process, possibly even leaving with hands only half-dried; a compromise that eliminates "unnecessary" waiting, while also rendering one's hands to a manageable dryness that can be wiped on one's pants if needed. Such was my struggle today, when I feel like I was blessed with a decent analogy. I love those teachable moments when God inserts a wise thought into my head and heart as I'm going about my day. Thank you Lord. :)
So here it is, and then I'm finished; promise. :)
So often our spiritual lives are so analogous to my struggles with hands dyers. Notice here that I'm cautious to label hand dryers as everyone's struggle, as it may just be mine. But then I would feel just silly. If this is indeed a fact, please don't tell me.
Actually, I am going to be über-cautious here as well and label the spirituality as my struggle as well, though I'd hazard a guess it could be your's as well. If it is your's, you know who you are; just nod and keep reading. Ahem.
So often in my life--after getting "wet "in the world, when it comes to the point where I reconvene with the Lord at different parts of the day, be it through need or want--so often I am tempted to either skip or rush the times of refocusing. So often, I am so busy in this life that my times of devotion to Him are short in nature, almost rushed, in the name of carrying about my day that much sooner. In this way, my spiritual life is sometimes analogous with my hand dryer struggles: Just as I want to rush the step of drying my hands after washing them to lessen my down time, sometimes I want to rush the healing from the Father that comes after a day in this world. So often, I do rush this time, much to my future dismay and destruction, and only receive a partial treatment. When I only half-dry my hands, I have to seek other methods of meeting my needs later, none of which meet the same standard (whether it be drying my hands on my pant legs, shaking them dry later, or blowing on them myself). Such is true for my spiritual life as well; when I rush my time of devotion with the Father, I feel, though perhaps slightly restored, as though I'm still lacking in that area of my life, causing me to unwittingly grab for other things in this life to meet those needs, none of which can of do. Here is the point to this:
While the Father's method's of healing our hearts can sometimes be slow or even, in the moment, cumbersome, they are methods that we need desperately (even more so than dry hands). If it takes twenty minutes of prayer, if it takes an hour of reading His word (it often depends on how "wet our hands" are, right?), only after staying for the whole treatment can we be completely restored. The Bible says:
"He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:29-31 KJV)
Whatever your struggle today, wherever you may be, whatever you may be doing or may do, I bid you to take time to refocus on Him, to persevere through Him. This is all we can do, and it should be something we long to do. This is where the analogy breaks down, however: I'm just not going to be able to wait on that hand dryer after stopping for a restroom break. I'll just use germ-X when such break is needed. Speaking of...........
