While others may balk at their loss of privacy because of inspectors who invade their space, I’ve become quite comfortable with it.  In fact, my daily inspector is not even a human being.  It is a squirrel.  That’s right…the brown, fuzzy rodent who jumps from branch to branch, tree to tree and rooftop to attic.  Each morning as I sit in my back yard, The Inspector comes to complain about everything.  Rude and pushy, he chirps and squawks at every change I make in the garden.  On the days I trim major portions from his favorite jumping trees, I am scolded severely.

For several years, I thought this was my imagination until my sister came to spend a few weeks with me.  Several mornings she, too, wandered onto the patio to have a quiet time with the Lord.  “There is a squirrel in your yard that is terribly rude and bossy,” she reported to me after a few days.  Because her family has raised squirrels and kept them as pets, she is familiar with their attitudes and personalities.  “I’ve seen bossy and rude squirrels before but never one that tried to push me into submission.”

“Oh, yeah,” I told her.  “He comes every morning to inspect me and tell me how to run things around the yard.”

This morning I was pondering a disturbing dream that woke me up. As I sat quietly, minding my own business, The Inspector approached.  His rotten attitude had not improved.  He sat staring at me to be sure that I was paying attention.  Then he began his complaints.  For about five minutes, he ranted in his familiar cherps, squeaks and squawks.

Suddenly, I recognized those sounds.  That squirrel sounded amazingly like me.  Shocked, they were exactly like the prayers of complaint that I was mouthing to the Lord while attempting to decipher my distrubing dream.  I laughed and spoke out loud, “That’s what I sound like to you, isn’t it, Lord?”

“Pretty much ” was the casual reply the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart.  “Pretty much.”

My concern stemmed from a loss of control in some of the areas in my private life.  Clearly, I could see that The Inspector was trying to direct me while his simple squirrel mind could not possibly understand property rights, ownership or other complicated mankind matters that demanded that I must often distrub his home and playground.

In the same way, I cannot possibly understand how God owns and directs all of the heavens and earth.  Of course, He is deeply concerned about me and those things which effect me; but I cannot begin to fathom how my small portion is deeply intertwined into His plan for all of the universe.  While I’m no small cog to Him, in the overall history of mankind, my momentary hickups are not at all unnerving to the Creator.

Finally, the squirrel was distracted and left me to sort out his concerns and unbelief.  The Inspector cannot possibly understand that I truly have no control over his squirrelish life and livelihood.  However, I sat for a few moments deeply grateful that God understands and holds me gently in his hands soothing and answering even my most trivial complaints.