Shattering measuring cups in Jesus' name

Ah, parenthood... it's amazing the things you make us say: "Would you PLEASE stop trying to help in the kitchen and just go play video games with your brothers?" Don't judge me. If you're a parent you've said similar things. But God never says these things to us. He could send legions of angels to proclaim His message flawlessly. He could spring water from dry wells in Africa. He could cure children dying from diarrhea in Haiti. He could rescue 12 year old girls from the sex trade in Ethiopia. But He sends us. Like my two-year-old, we toddle around this big, round kitchen we call Earth and drop glass measuring cups, shattering a would be rescue, or would be salvation, or would be cure, into a million pieces of what could have been. But, somehow it still works. Somehow mercy is shown through the actions of embittered aid workers. Nutrition is provided through scant resources. The Gospel is received from the mouths of hypocrites. Somehow through our weakness He is made strong after all. God invites us holistically with our imperfections, novice experiences, questionable motives, and clumsy actions. But that "somehow" is no mystery at all. He takes our hands into His, like a loving parent compensates for the crude motor skills of a toddler. He tells us what to do, guides our hands as we do it, and with the patience of the ages He lets us grow up in Him. So go ahead and toddle into the kitchen. There is work to do, and He'll use your clumsiness to do it just as He has done through His children from the original breath of life. Ya, you'll drop something and watch it shatter, but He'll clean it up and hand you another one.