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Some say life is or isn’t like a bowl of cherries. Forest Gump said life is like a box of chocolates. Instead I say life is more like experiencing Ikea. We amble around getting lost and when we find what we want, we do not always get proper assembly for their furniture figured out, but somehow we construct something that will hold books, ourselves, the evening meal or our coats. Many times following the directions is a great help. Other times directions seem useless, even problematic to accomplishing the finished product. Sometimes going it on our own in our own way works best.

Anecdotally I once heard the divorce rate in a town increases by 13.2% after an Ikea opens its doors. Personally I have never had my marriage affected by trying to figure out the various widgets and where and how they might go, but my fingers certainly hurt afterward from the tiny and very non-ergonomic tool needed for assembly. So it is with life. We don’t always get the best equipment, but somehow we mostly seem to get through it, sometimes with an ache or two.

If ever you have gone through an Ikea store, you are aware that going through it all takes a lot of wandering here and there. There are some short cuts if you want to skip right to the Swedish meatballs or look for a new office chair. Some short cuts, however, make you miss some of the best stuff. Other short cuts are not that at all…they return you to a section you had once traveled through. Wandering through the entire store following the lighted arrows on the floor takes you past some pretty cheap looking things, some decent looking furniture and some things that have you scratch your head as you ask yourself, “What is that?”

We also find ourselves wandering through life frequently wishing for or trying short cuts. Some work out well, some instead backfire. We follow the directions in life taught us by parents and elders when we were children. Most were pretty good advice, some should have been tossed aside by us long ago. Many things in life cause us to wonder and ask “What is that?” Like Ikea’s lingonberries we can see and taste some things by themselves but still remain uncertain as to what they are.

A crisp walk through Ikea can be done in as little as 2,000 steps. Some websites, however, claim the average shopper spends 9 miles wandering around in circles, mostly looking for restrooms. Life is like that too. We would rather be shopping but some basic human need gets in the way preventing us from doing so.

Finally we make our purchases in Ikea only to discover they have no bags to put them in unless we want to purchase a huge bag the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Where then do we store that bag once we get home? We could go in the back yard and camp out in it or, perhaps, cover the car we keep parked in the driveway. Life too gives us many inconveniences many of which we can’t seem to figure out what to do with them. Others find us creatively innovating some unique and clever usage.

Life is a lot like Ikea. For Christians we might not always know where we are headed. We may not have the best directions to follow and our tools may seem inadequate for the many challenges that come our way. Short cuts to following Jesus are often problematic. Yet God seems to think God has gifted us sufficiently for all that God calls us to do. So wander around, get lost, take the long way some times and short cuts a few other times, and use what God gave you. If God is content with the gifts we have been given, we can be as well. And even in the midst of life’s wanderings, don’t forget to stop and enjoy the Swedish meatballs.