What the O-Ring Showed Me

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It’s Right There on Our, Um, “Vintage” Bathroom Tile.

Everything Isn’t in Place. 
Sighting the o-ring lying on the bathroom counter lay down a speedbump on my weekday-morning bathroom racetrack routine. Random o-rings don’t just materialize. No. They come from somewhere.

And not just any-old-where. They come from somewhere that requires an o-ring to forestall leaking, failing, or bursting into flames. (Did I ever mention my first real job was in a hardware store? Or that I was Daddy’s tag-along on Saturday mornings? Trust me. Random o-rings are not a good thing.)

I stopped, looked under the bathroom sink, behind the toilet, and any other place I could inspect for signs of imminent flooding. Nothing.

Reluctantly, I set aside the o-ring mystery and returned to my morning preparations.

But that stray gasket lying on the counter nagged at me. What did it come from? What is about to fail, or  go up in a burst of flame, or at least spring a nasty leak?

Anxious, I mulled the possibilities throughout the day and came to no conclusion.

Only later did I realize: I adore a comfortable illusion. I awake in the morning, plan my day, and off I go, assuming that things are as they seem, that everything is in order.

I like to pretend that all the pieces are perfectly in place. I like to think we have all the loose ends tied up and we know how stuff “works.”

Truth is, I see just one little arc of the circle. 

And if I could see the whole of it, it would take my breath away. 

17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NASB)