Eddie has a normal job, a normal car, a normal life. It's certainly less than he dreamt up when he was a kid and his teachers would ask the "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question, but he's okay where he is.
At Thirty years old he's doing better than most with his salary and job title, but he would take more if it were given to him. A promotion at work could do the trick—could send him into the next salary bracket, and help him take that vacation to Jamaica he always wanted. Just a little more, that's all it would take to make him a little happier.
One day Eddie went to work and didn't feel right, something was off. More than uncomfortable, he felt sick and had a drilling headache that wouldn't go away no matter how many ibuprofen he gulped down. Thankfully his insurance package covered little things like this, so he took an early lunch break to go get checked out at the hospital nearby.
The doc listened to his heart, his lungs, and felt around his neck and under his ears looking for anything that might give an answer to his issue, but found nothing. Standard procedure for this sort of thing is to order up some blood work and a few other minor tests to see if any clues might be found, so the doc did just that. "You're the third one today that came in with these symptoms," doc said as he sent him on his way.
Initially this was just supposed to be a standard check-up: Doc investigates, prescribes medicine, one hour later he's back to work, two days later he is back in full swing and feeling great. But this little "kink" makes him realize that his plans for the afternoon have now changed and he's going to be late to work.
Eddie isn't the most patient with this sort of thing. He makes decent money, and has great healthcare which should give him the results he needs when he needs them. After an hour of sitting in line for his first test he grows more and more impatient, but it's not because he's worried about the results—he knows it's fairly minor. He's upset because he deserves better, he deserves more. He's entitled.
He's strong enough to show a little restraint during his hour-long wait and not demand to have faster service, but deep down he's starting to scream. His outer portrait is calm, but his inner self is raging like the Hulk, thrusting critical comments at the hospital staff behind the counter. You're so lazy! Move faster! How can you laugh right now? You're making me late to work!
As Eddie sits in his purple corduroy hospital chair, he notices a young girl down the hall walking toward him. She opens up her hand and give's Eddie a small note that reads:
"Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest."
___________________
Jesus didn't just come to calm the most tempestuous storms in our lives, he also came to calm down the minor ripples that nobody ever sees, the one's that we bury deep down.
It's a little too easy to look past the mundane, and quickly passing "secret storms" we face most days, but these are just as in need of Jesus' redemption as anything else. That they even exist, is evidence enough that without him, we will never be led to still water because he is the rest we need. Take it from Eddy, the only guy in the world that knows what his life is really like.
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