A Lesson from the Vacuum: What it Taught Me About God

His eyes flashed with anxiety. What is the whirring sound coming from the living room? They asked.

My eight-month-old looked to me for reassurance. “It’s okay,” I said. “Daddy is vacuuming.”

Immediately, the words sank deep into my soul. The lesson I was trying to teach my son is one I needed to hear myself. Daddy holds the vacuum.

At two-and-a-half feet tall, a towering four-foot purple vacuum with the word Shark written on the front seems to threaten your very existence. It might just suck you up along with the dust bunnies on the rug.

Isn’t that how we feel about life sometimes? The storm whirls around us, large and shrill. We fear it might engulf us in its rage.

But then we remember—there is one who holds the storm.

My son didn’t need shiver at the sound of the ferocious purple vacuum because his daddy controlled its every move. It could only get as close or whir as loud as he let it.

In the same way, God controls the whirlwind that threatens to overwhelm us. He is the strong arm that controls how long, how fierce, how desperate the storm.

King David—no stranger to turmoil—wrote with brave certainty about God’s care. “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked” (Psalm 91:8-9).

Amidst life’s fiercest battles and darkest trials, God assures us of his control. The hard things of life may wreak havoc all around us, but they won’t completely wreck us. He will protect. He will provide. He will turn it down or turn it off in his perfect time.

Perhaps you find yourself in the middle of a whirring dust cloud today. It’s dark, dirty, and desperate all around you. Fear closes in.

Hold to the promise that there is one who clutches your situation with the palm of his tender hand. Nothing gets close to you that he doesn’t allow. And he will use all of it—the darkness, the dirt, the deafening sounds—to show you more of himself.

Let’s look beyond the cloud in front of us and up to the one who determines its every turn. How will you trust him today?