EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH
Never too small a problem

By H.M. Wyeth

My friend, who was practicing rolling his kayak, popped his head out of the water and shouted, "Can I borrow your face mask for a minute? I lost my nose plugs."

Eager to help, I grabbed mask and snorkel and jumped in. This should be a piece of cake, I thought. The water is glass-clear, 3 meters deep at most. White sand bottom. No current to speak of. The nose plugs are on a bright yellow cord. ...

But after 10 minutes of subaqueous scanning, the errant nose plugs and their bright yellow cord were nowhere to be seen. That was when I started to pray.

In less time than it has taken me to write this, I turned and swam back toward some sand that I had just examined. Sure enough, waving gently at me was that bright yellow cord!

Coincidence? I think not. Rather, I had found myself (and those errant nose plugs) in the middle of a true-life parable.

On two occasions, something similar happened to Jesus' disciples (Luke 5:1-7 and John 21:2-6). They had fished the night away, catching nothing. When Jesus showed up and ordered them to throw their nets one more time, they protested.

It's easy to see why: They straggle in, tired, hungry and discouraged from a hard night's work, only to hear some landlubber tell them to go try again.

Yet back they went, and this time caught enough fish to break their nets and almost sink their boat.

Jesus did not tell them to try a different net, a new fishing spot or another boat. He did not suggest they take up another line of work (though they eventually did). Nor did he snap his fingers and cause fish to magically hurl themselves ashore.

To all appearances, the fishermen were doing exactly what they had been doing. The significant difference was that they did it in response to a divine command, not a human impulse, however noble. That accounted for their success.

Back to the nose-plug story: Thinking it over, I realized that in my zeal to help, I had charged into the water thinking I need not bother God with a problem whose solution seemed so simple. Yet, if asked to add 3 plus 5, would I have thought it unnecessary to bother invoking mathematics because the numbers were so small? Imagine what trouble would result if people only used mathematics to add numbers greater than 10! Yet what enables anyone to do any sum is the understanding that the same principles apply to all numbers, irrespective of size.

Proverbs 3:5-6 reads, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." It does not say, "In all thy big problems, acknowledge him, but lean unto thine own understanding for the small ones."

Is anything too big or too small to trust to God, the divine principle of all good?

H.M. Wyeth is a member of the Christian Science Society on Kaua'i.