Thursday, July 10, 2014

The Rubber Room


The Rubber Room

Do you ever feel like you are trapped in a rubber room. In that room you just keep bouncing off the wall. Do you remember those Indian rubber balls we used to play with when we were children? They bounced so fast and if you threw that ball against the wall it would quickly bounce back and forth from one wall to the next. It was difficult for the eyes to keep up to the speed of the ball.

That rubber wall is there wherever we go and we keep banging our heads against it day-after-day. Some drive the road to work early in the morning, racing all the other cars and traffic. You arrive at work and sit at your rubber desk and bang your head off that rubber desk three or four times a day. You put in your eight to twelve our shift and by the end of the day you feel like Gumby. I'm showing my age now. When I was a child, my generation played with two toys called Gumby and Pokey. They were made of rubber.  I could bend and twist them and they would always go back to form. They would not break.

What do we do to get out of that rubber room? Good question.  Things made of rubber usually bounce back. It softens with each blow. It conforms to whatever it touches. It is strong. Perhaps that is why someone invented the phrase, "that is where the rubber hits the road." What does that mean?

It's an expression, a figurative one, that means when or where something will be tested. It's derived from, I think, the contact point of automobile tires with the road. As currently used, it means the conditions in which something will demonstrate how good or effective it really is.

"Think about driving along in a car. All that keeps the car going in the right direction, steering round corners and stopping when you want it to, is a very small area of contact between the four wheels and the road. That's where the real business of controlling your car is happening, where the rubber meets the road, - where it really matters, where it counts, generally."

Okay, I'm thinking in the context that because at this current time of feeling like I'm trapped in a little rubber room and bouncing around like a little Indian rubber ball. My Gumby is being tested to see if I will continue to bounce in the right direction. Will I allow gravity to take the ball wherever it wants to go or will I run after that little ball and finally catch up to it, grab it, control it, by putting it in my pocket? Will I keep hitting my head on that rubber wall or rubber desk or whatever the rubber is that is hitting the road in my life?

Where is the rubber hitting the road for me personally? Do I allow God to come into that rubber room with me? Do I invite God's peace to fill that rubber room? Do I stop chasing that ball around the room, sit down and then wait for it to stop all on its own? Can you visualize the picture with me? Eventually the rubber ball will stop if we are patient and still before God. Sit back and lean against the rubber wall, breathe, talk to God and wait for Him to escort you out of the rubber room. I imagine God will show me that there is an open door if I stop banging my head long enough to see it. No more banging my head against that rubber wall. Don't let my Gumby conform to the rubber walls in this world.

For a biblical perspective - Romans 12:2 New English Translation (NET Bible)
"2 Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect."

Let my Gumby to bend to His will and not my will. The two toys Gumby and Pokey could play quite well together.

What is your Gumby doing today?

Gumby and Pokey utube link