I heard a story that made me laugh, but it taught be a vital lesson. My friend, Kashonna told the story. Before her dog was potty trained, for some reason, it peed on a particular spot in the room. It was like clock-work. There seemed to be no other space in the whole house. Amazing.
Now, the urine on the floor was not the issue. The issue, and the straw that broke Kashonna’s back, was this: Everybody perceived the stench of ammonia, everyone saw the wet yellow patch on the carpet, but everybody just walked past it! Nobody did anything about it.
Being a mother, this literally freaked Kashonna out! She got fed up one day and screamed, “Don’t just walk past it; clean the pee up!”
Kashonna told this story as a perfect analogy of the burdens we have. She used the story to illustrate the need to make sure we never get desensitized to our burdens. It was perfect.
Let me share some thoughts with you.
You see, each and every one of us has a burden; we have that one thing or those things that pull on our heartstrings and bring us to tears. For me, it’s seeing people live below their potential and seeing homeless people on the street. For you it could be single mothers, orphans, certain countries or the dearth of integrity. Whatever it is for you, your heart sinks whenever it is brought to your attention.
The crux of this blog is that we move from mere perception to intentional actions. We must move from empty and distant concerns to deep-seated burdens. We must never allow ourselves to be desensitized. We must never get used to the things that keep us up at night. We must never walk past the pool of urine without cleaning it up.
As I thought about this, I realized that having a burden is actually a blessing. It is a sign that God still trusts you to meet a need. It shows that somewhere within the crevices of your being are the elements that when properly combined would produce the antidote to the ails that bother your heart.
A burden is a blessing, but we must never walk past this blessing, no matter how painful our hearts might be. Just as pee is meant to be cleaned up, burdens are meant to be lifted. And it is our actions—our well-intentioned actions—that lift these burdens.
Don’t walk past the pee, clean it up!