The man, asleep in the trash bin, was awakened with a jolt. He had been scooped up along with the trash by a 21-ton Indianapolis garbage truck. Knocked unconscious, he came to upside-down and squeezed into an area where, as the driver later put it, “a human being shouldn’t fit.”
The truck started again and picked up two more loads of trash. When the driver stopped for a third load, he heard some hollering. Getting out, he looked around. The voice sounded far away, and he could see no one. So he started the compactor. That’s when he heard a banging inside the truck. Thinking something mechanical was wrong, he stopped the cylinders. Then, he later reported, he “heard a voice saying he sure would like to get out of wherever he was.” Fortunately, the driver saw to it that he did.
Did you ever feel caught in a compactor? Feel that you had too much responsibility, too many concerns, too much to do and not enough time, too many engagements and not enough strength—so much so that you sure would like to have gotten out of wherever you were?
We’re talking here about compactors, and there is nothing creative, supportive, or productive about a compactor: it is destructive. It goes beyond pressure, the subject of our first By the Way column. Compaction goes to the breaking point or, more accurately, the squashing point.
When you find yourself there (never mind how you got there, for this is a parable with built-in limitations), the first thing to do is to holler. Yes, a prayer can be a holler. A prayer can also be a sigh, a tear, a murmur, a look, a reasoned entreaty. It can also be a holler. God hears his children: “His ears are open to their cry.”
“God does not promise strength for uncommanded work.” Perhaps you’re attempting things he hasn’t commanded. When I began to feel compacted and cried for help, God showed me my priorities had gotten distorted. He was to come first. Then I realized I needed to be “liberated” from wherever I was: off of boards and committees, creating no more books or articles for the time being, attending no unnecessary meetings nor granting unnecessary interviews.
This was God’s answer for me. He may have another solution for you.
I want to be free to be a wife, a homemaker, a mother, and a grandmother.
Compacted? He’ll help you out of wherever you are.
