A young woman named Brenda was invited one day to go rock climbing with some friends. Although she was not a skilled rock climber and was apprehensive about the excursion, she went with her group to a tremendous granite cliff. In spite of her fear, she put on the necessary gear, took hold of the safety rope, and started up the face of the rock. About half way up the rock was a ledge where she stopped to rest. As she was hanging there, the safety rope snapped against Brenda’s eye and knocked out one of her contact lens.
There she was, on a rock ledge, with hundreds of feet of the sheer granite rock below her and hundreds of feet above her. As she hung there, she looked and looked and looked, hoping the contact lens had landed on the ledge, but it just was not there. Far from home, her sight now blurry, Brenda was desperate and began to become upset. Before continuing her climb, she prayed to the Lord to help her find the missing lens.
When Brenda reached the top of the cliff, a friend examined her eye and her clothing carefully for the lens, but there was no contact lens to be found. She sat down, despondent, waiting for the rest of the group to complete the climb up the face of the cliff. Looking out across range after range of mountains, she thought of the verse that says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.” 11 Chronicles 16:9. She prayed, “Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me.”
Finally, everyone in Brenda’s group reached the top. Then they made their way down the trail to the bottom of the massive rock. At the bottom, a new party of climbers was just starting up the face of the cliff. One of them shouted out, “Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?” That would be startling enough, but do you know why that climber had spotted the lost lens? An ant was moving slowly across the face of the rock, carrying it on its back.
When she got home, Brenda told her father, a caricature artist, the incredible story of the contact lens, the prayer, and the ant, so he drew a picture of an ant lugging a contact lens with the words, “Lord, I don’t know why You want me to carry this thing. I can’t eat it, and it’s awfully heavy. But if this is what You want me to do, I’ll carry it for You.”
It would probably do some of us good to occasionally say, “God, I don’t know why you want me to carry this load. I can see no good in it, and it’s awfully heavy. But, if you want me to carry it, I will.” “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Philippians 4:13.