Stumbling

Today's passage:  I Corinthians 1:21-31
     Three boys a messy house does make.  I have an almost two year old who will drag out nearly everything he can reach, and a four year old who will drag out everything his brother can't.  Needless to say, there is an endless trail of random things strewn around my house, no matter my best effort from trying to keep them off the floor.  Just when I have organized the shoes in the foyer for the five hundred and seventieth time, my littlest guy wants to try on every pair.  Almost as soon as I have mopped my kitchen floor, something gets spilled.  I feel like I am always putting out fires, and it never looks like anything is getting accomplished. When I am trying to stay on a chore schedule, getting my list of things done (which I don't do very well veering off my list, I want to check everything off of it) I walk right past many of the misplaced objects in my path.  If I am on a mission to tidy up the bathroom, I am not going to stop and pick up every toy in my way en route, or my destination will never be reached.  If I am intent on getting the folded laundry put away, I probably should move those items that are cluttering the stairs but am not willing to put the laundry basket down to do that at the moment.  Would it make sense to do it right then?  Yes.  Would it be wise?  If I want to avoid a fall, most definitely.  Then why on earth do I procrastinate?  Because I am too focused on the task I have in my mind to do.  I don't want to get sidelined with something that I did not have planned that day.  Of course, picking up should be my plan every day because it is never ending.  But because it is never ending, I would never get to anything else in my house. 
     "But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;"
     The unbelieving Jews could not accept the cross.  It was right in their line of vision, but they had to shield their eyes from what they did not want to see.  This crucifixion that Christ went through was not on their checklist for the Messiah.  It was not in agreement with what they believed.  They would purposely have to walk around it because it was in their path.  All of their rituals, sacrifices, cleansings, pointed right to it, but they were too focused on what they wanted to believe to accept that this was something necessary for them.  If they would actually take a good look at the cross, they would understand that it fell in line with everything they believed.  But they didn't want to look.  They couldn't move it out of the way, so that meant ignoring it. 
     I've learned to ignore the lost and found items in my house.  It would be better and safer if I would just bend over and pick them up.  I'm too determined to stick to my little checklist.  Often, I'm too weary and overcome with everything else that I have to do.  And really, it is not the picking up, it is the putting away.  Every item has a different home, which means trips all over my house.  That gets time-consuming.  Maybe that is what bothered the Jews the most.  If they paid attention to the cross, they would have to fit it in somewhere.  They would have to incorporate it somehow into what they believed, and that might take some major reworking.  They weren't willing to do that kind of work.  They didn't want to give the cross a home.  Their biggest mistake is thinking that they would have to make the crucifixion work for them.  The crucifixion was the work.  They needed to discard their other thoughts and only grab onto that. 
    My house would look a lot neater if I made sure everything was in its place.  It might mean the floor didn't get mopped today.  It might mean the refrigerator didn't get cleaned out.  It might mean the bookshelves didn't get dusted, again.  But that is probably less noticeable than a room littered with misfit items.  I would do better to toss my checklist and just do the things that are immediately necessary.