Psyched out at Home Depot

I psyched myself out at Home Depot. I’d gone there to buy wood for a library wall I dreamed of building, which remains a dream.

When I was a young girl, I went to the hardware store with my dad on Saturdays and helped him with different home projects. I loved plodding along behind him, smelling freshly cut wood, and my job was to hold the ends of long 2x4s or other boards, so they didn’t fall off the lumber cart. On the ride home, we’d stop for a donut to fuel up before beginning the home project.

This time I walked into Home Depot alone, with my list of board measurements in hand, and headed straight for the lumber aisle. I strolled past burly contractors loading their wood onto their lumber carts, and stopped and stared at the different lengths and widths. The smell was still the same, the aisle location similar, and the burly men didn’t seem quite as huge now that I was a grown adult. I should have been able to make a purchase, but I got intimidated and left empty-handed.

The confidence I had as a child tagging along after my dad was gone because he wasn’t with me.

I can’t tell you how many days I’ve gotten up and tried to start my day on my own, or how many situations I thought I had it in me to handle, only to realize how ill-equipped I was when I didn’t ask God to be with me and guide me. Jesus told his disciples in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Without God, we can do nothing.

Moses knew from the beginning that he didn’t have what it would take to speak to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt. God, however, had a simple reply for Moses: “I will be with you.” (Exod. 3:12)

That should have been all the confidence Moses needed, and it should be all the confidence we need to face our daily challenges. The Bible teaches us in Deuteronomy 20:1 “When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.” In verses three and four, it reiterates, “Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be terrified by them. For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.” 

We don’t fight these battles alone, whether it’s something small like picking out wood from Home Depot or going up against a bad health diagnosis. God is with us, and He fights for us. So let us face life’s challenges with the confidence of a young girl skipping behind her father down the aisles of Home Depot or with the confidence of David as he says in Psalm 16:8, “I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.”