Don't let the rocks scare you. Some day they will be what you admire most.

When I was a kid, my parents built a house. Well, they didn't build it, they actually had a bunch of Amish men build it. I remember watching that house go up smack dab in the middle of a huge open square of endless and ugly brown dirt. I was only about 7 or 8 I suppose at the time, but I remember that scene so well.

Maybe because once that house was finished, I spent a summer in the Midwest heat and humidity picking up rocks in that dirt, preparing it for my dad to plant grass seed. Years later, when I was old enough to ride the mower and mow that grass, I'd always stand back and admire how nice that freshly mowed yard looked. And I'd always remember those rocks.

Even today, I find great joy in mowing my own yard. When I'm done I often find myself standing out in the street and just looking at it. Even though I'm standing hundreds of miles, a few states and about 50 years away from those rocks of my childhood - I often remember them fondly standing alone in that street.

Lately I've been running by a few new houses being built in our area. One day I'll run by them and see brown dirt, and the next day there will be a beautiful yard there. And I wonder - what about the rocks?

We want that in our lives some days, don't we? We want to skip the rocks and the seed planting and just stand in the street and admire our lives. We want to skip the toil and jump right to man, life is good.

If you're like me, though, you've lived long enough to know that's not how life works. If you're like me, you've lived long enough to know the beauty we're often standing in the street admiring is impossible without the rocks. And if you're like me, you begin to wonder if when God is standing in the street admiring me, he's looking at my rocks with a smile, totally unaware that I have this beautiful yard.

We are all picking up rocks these days. Employment struggles. Relationship struggles. What do I do with my kids this school year struggles. Health struggles - yours or someone your worried about. We see the rocks on the news. Some days there are even rocks we are tossing at one another.

Dear God almighty, it's in your power, just go ahead and lay some sod already!!

I love what Bob Goff says this morning in his devotional:

"Our lives can feel like a desert sometimes, like nothing's coming easy and we're just parched and dried up. We scramble for ways to look like we're the finished product, so we start improvising ways to look like we have things figured out. We throw a fresh coat of paint over our rusted and busted frames, roll out the fake turf, and hope nobody notices the difference."

I know you're scrambling today. But stop for a minute. Oh, the rocks are heavy and dirty and it's hot out and the last thing you want to be doing is toting around those dreaded rocks.

But one day, those rocks are going to be the beauty in something. One day you're going to be standing in the street of your life and admiring something rather ordinary as if it's the most beautiful image you've ever seen. Only, it won't be that image you're drawn to - it will be your memory of those rocks.