Hans and Katy’s house in England was built nearly 50 years ago and has a small one-car garage. When Hans put his work van away each night, he had only 3” of wiggle room front and rear, and only enough side-room to barely squeeze himself out the driver’s door. I watched him back it in, appreciating the expertise it took to hit it just right.
With the purchase of his larger van, pulling in at all is no longer possible, which is both bad news and good. The bad news is having to arrange a secure parking place somewhere else. The good news is acquiring a bunch of new storage space in the empty garage.
One week ago when I was there, Hans and I were standing in the middle of the garage while he explained where new shelves would go, when I looked up and saw words of chalk written on one of the brick walls:
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”
When I pointed to the words and asked about them, Hans said, “It’s the last thing I saw getting into the van to go to work every morning, and the first thing I saw getting out when I got home. Good stuff.” In the midst of a garage full of utilitarian items, this quote from Psalm 91 stood out as something special, a practical promise straight from heaven.
Lots of us complain about not having enough time to focus on God and his Word. Our lives are crowded with other things, good things, and squeezing in Scripture can seem impossible. But chalk and a brick wall offer one way to do it.
The Bible is immensely practical. If we’ll let it, its wisdom will get us through shaky days with steadiness, and squeezing Scripture into our schedules will pay off exponentially. We can write verses on mirrors, index cards, screen savers, refrigerator magnets, laundry walls, bricks, or anything else as a way to partake of God’s supernatural power, the power he offers to send through his Word.
He invites us to creatively squeeze it in.
Seeing the chalked words in Hans’ garage reminded me of another place Scripture was squeezed in. Years ago our house in Illinois had a well worn path just outside the kitchen door that led to the next-door-neighbors’ house. The non-stop footprints between the two houses wore away the grass and left a muddy trail instead.
Wanting to reduce the dirty footprints coming into my kitchen, I pressed a row of concrete stepping stones into the mud, and God provided a squeeze-it-in idea. We wrote one word of a footstep-verse on each stone so that young feet could absorb his wisdom as they ran between the houses: “The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him.” (Psalm 37:23)
Like Hans, we were just trying to gain God’s wisdom by squeezing it in.
“Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words.” (Proverbs 4:5)
