Puddles

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."
Mark 12:30

The other morning I started on a run and it was pouring down rain, which I wasn't thrilled with, but decided to brave it anyway. As i was running, I found myself skipping over puddles and getting really preoccupied with my running shoes getting wet. Weird huh? Here I was running in RAIN, and I was concerned that my shoes were going to get wet if I ran through a puddle. Never mind the fact that my body was soaked and the rain wasn't stopping, I was literally leaping and tiptoeing (if that's a word) through the puddles that had accumulated in the street. I soon realized how ridiculous it was (after about 15 minutes of playing this game) and had a little revelation.
In my life there have been times where I am so concerned with the "puddles" if you will, the small problems/behaviors/circumstances that I was unable to realize the big problem (or the down pouring rain). Bear with me, this metaphor is a little lame. For instance, there have been times I have been preoccupied with changing my behaviors to fit what I thought I SHOULD be doing or I would get concerned with my interactions and relationships with people and maybe wanted them to be deeper or more meaningful/not so destructive. I would be so focused on these THINGS, that I failed to see that the likely reason my habits/behaviors were out of whack or my relationships were unhealthy was because of a bigger problem--a bigger disconnect. The "problems" were often just a result of being disconnected with God.
I can pinpoint periods in my life where I can't believe some of the things I did. And of course, in hindsight, I can see that my attempts in those times to change or fix what was happening failed because I was correcting a symptom of the disconnect, rather than the disconnect itself.
However, even now when I am really feeling a growing connection with God and have really had 3 months of awesome-ness :), I still find myself getting preoccupied with the small stuff, with the stuff that would work itself out if I just focused on connecting and trusting God more deeply. Not sure if that makes sense. But when I was running, I kept thinking, it's simple, love God with all my heart. I CAN DO THAT. If I am working on making that happen, the details, the small things--they will work themselves out. If I am loving God with all my heart, my relationships WILL be more meaningful and hopefully my behaviors will be less destructive, etc. I like that I don't and actually can't fix all the small problems, all the symptoms of disconnect without focusing on loving God with all my heart. I think sometimes we make it so much more complicated than it is. And don't get me wrong, I know life is complex and relationships are hard to maintain and build, but I believe and want to trust that if we really are trying to love God with all we have, the small stuff will just seem, well small. I'm gonna stop focusing on the puddles, and start focusing on stoping the RAIN :)