Molehills vs Mountains: The Night the Bed Fell

Blog Series

Helpful Tips for Saving Yourself from Trouble

It is said that you cannot break the laws of God. You can only break yourself against them when you violate them. In this series we are looking at some of the simple and clear “laws of God” – that is to say, “biblical principles” – that we must follow if we do not want to bring very negative cause-effect consequences into our lives.

Of Molehills and Mountains

I remember the night the bed fell.

I had flown to Chicago on a Friday to conduct an all-day seminar in a church the next day. It was winter time and I felt like I was coming down with a nasty cold. I was getting a sore throat and a mild fever. I hate colds anyway, and to have to give an all-day seminar with one was something I did not want to do. I had learned that my only hope was to take a bunch of vitamin C and get rest. I checked into the hotel, ate an early dinner, went to my room and began getting ready for bed early, about 8:30. I wanted lights out by 9:00 pm. Up by 7:00 am would give me 10 hours of sleep, and that just might help me avert a nasty, hacking cold.

It was about then that I noticed all the noise out in the hall. Kids, thousands of them, rushing up and down the hallway like lemmings to the sea, making enough noise to raise the dead. “What in the world?!?” I wondered. I stood in my doorway, glaring at them, hoping that my stern demeanor would reduce them to silence. They didn’t even see me. TVs were blaring from open doors, kids were shouting from one end of the hall to the other. There was a small soccer game going on three doors down. It was like Times Square on New Year’s Eve, only with little people.

They say when you have a brush with death, your whole life flashes in front of you. Well, that moment, my whole evening flashed in front of me: I knew I would get no sleep! But I tried anyway. Better to light a candle than curse the darkness. I called the manager. I said, “Could you please send someone up to my floor to try to quiet these kids down? I’m not feeling well, and I have a big day tomorrow, etc. etc.”

“Of course, Mr. Anders, we’ll have somebody up there right away.”

A half an hour later, “lights out” time, it was even noisier. I called the manager again.

“The noise is as bad as ever. Did you send anyone up?”

“Yes, Mr. Anders, but I’m afraid there are not enough adults to supervise the kids, and it apparently didn’t do any good.”

“Well, could you move me to another part of the hotel?”

This was a big hotel, and I could get away from the noise on another floor or wing.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Anders, there is a regional YMCA swim meet here in Chicago this weekend, and all the kids are staying here. The entire hotel is booked with swimmers.”

I must have been the only non-YMCA-er in the building. My encroaching illness made me desperate. I wanted to walk out in the hall and scream, “Be quiet, you little monsters! I need some sleep!” Three things kept me from it.

• First was the realization that it was sin.
• Second was the thought that someone on the floor might end up at my seminar the next day.
• Third was a great wave of hopelessness that they would even hear me.

9:30 pm: I was getting more desperate. “I shouldn’t get this upset,” I thought to myself. “It’s only working against me. I need to relax.” This was a nice hotel, and the shower was extra-large and enclosed in glass so that I could turn on a nozzle and fill it with steam. It was a personal sauna. “I’ll get in the sauna for a while,” I thought. “That will relax me.” I steamed myself into “wet-noodle” condition. I groped my way back to bed, turned out the lights and closed my eyes. Seconds later they snapped open. I wasn’t the least bit sleepy in spite of the fact that I had nearly boiled myself to oblivion.

The bed had a vibrator on it. That would help me. I’d get good and relaxed. Maybe I’d even go to sleep while it was running. I put two quarters in, just to be sure. All the time, the party was raging unabated outside my door. It’s so hard to relax when you’re uptight. It was 10:00 pm by now. An hour’s sleep lost. All I could think about was suffering through a horrible day tomorrow because those inconsiderate little no-brain monsters were allowed to run amuck while the adults were down in the restaurant or bar or somewhere.

Not very spiritual thoughts for someone who was going to spend the entire next day teaching the Bible.

My mental agitation plus the thorough cooking I had given myself earlier made the vibrator feel bad instead of good. It wasn’t thirty seconds before I realized I had made a mistake. Oh, how I wished I had only put in one quarter instead of two.

I laid there trying to talk myself into relaxing. All the time, I was vibrating like a small air-hammer. When my front teeth began to feel loose, I finally flung the covers back and got up. I stormed over to a chair and sat there for another 10 minutes until the vibrator finally shut off.

10:30 pm:  I was debating between suicide and homicide when it occurred to me (why hadn’t I thought of this before?) that I often sleep when the television is on. I turned on the TV and flipped channels looking for the best channel to sleep by. In an instant, I found it. A high school basketball game. The state of Illinois was having its state championship game that night, and it was televised. Perfect! I sleep like a baby during sports events. I turned it on just loud enough to help drown out the noise outside my door, but not so loud as to keep me from sleeping. Ah, finally I had hit on the answer. It was late, but not a total disaster. I could still get eight hours of sleep, my absolute minimum.

As I lay there trying to drift off, I heard a crazed announcer scream, “It’s fifty-one to fifty-two. It’s fifty-three to fifty-two. It’s fifty-four to fifty-three. It’s fifty-five to…  My eyes bugged. I couldn’t help it. Though I was living in Atlanta at the time, I was born and raised in Indiana, the Hoosier state. The Basketball State. When you drive through the Midwest, you can tell how close you are to Indiana by how frequently you begin to see basketball backboards up on garages, barns and light poles.

I found myself sitting on the end of the bed, bug-eyed at the spectacle before me. For reasons I will never understand, I somehow became “for” one of the teams. I had never heard of either team before. Soon, I was shouting, “Go, Go, Go! Rebound! Defense! Shoot the ball!” In one of the most stunning victories I have ever witnessed, “my” team won by one point in the final second. It was exhilarating. There are few joys richer than a come-from-behind victory in basketball!

11:30 pm:  The euphoria left as quickly as it had come. There was still noise outside my door, but it had slackened a little. I fell backwards onto my bed, beside myself with frustration. I turned off the TV, turned out the lights, grabbed my pillow and squeezed it around my ears. I flopped over on my stomach and bumped the headboard.

The headboard fell off the wall.

I was beginning to go numb. I put the head board back on the wall, collapsed onto the bed, and – the bed fell down! Mattress, box spring and frame, all buckled to the floor.

Is this truly happening!?! Was I the focus of some secret conspiracy to keep me from getting a good night’s sleep and making me sicker in the morning than I already was. With zombie-like mechanical-ness, I put the bed back together.

12:00 midnight. No noise outside. I was asleep in seconds.

The next morning, I got up at 7:00 am. It was silent as a tomb in the hallway. The little rascals would be able to sleep until noon. After I got ready to go down for breakfast, I had to fight the impulse to crank the television to its loudest volume, leave my door open, and sing “She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain when she comes!” at the top of my lungs, banging on all the doors as I left.

The interesting thing is… I was not sick. My only problem was the guilt that I had as I drove to the church to teach people the Bible and how to be a good Christian. I hadn’t been a very good example. None of them knew it, of course, but the Lord did. And so did I. He and I had a talk before I reached the church.

It wouldn’t have been a disaster if I had been sick that day. But I treated it as though it would have been, and when one thing after another just kept coming at me, I alternated between a basket case and a time bomb. I couldn’t decide whether to fall apart or blow up. When I look back on it, like many things in life, it’s funny now. But I wasn’t laughing at the time.

Conclusion

Have you ever let little things build up until they became a big thing? It has likely happened to all of us at one time or another. Little things can add up to big things. Molehills can become mountains. They can get out of control. They can become big and possibly dangerous. They can potentially become something that is devastating. And it all could have been easily averted if we had just caught it when it was little.

Don’t let little things become a big thing. Jesus said, in Luke 16:10, “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much…”  He urges us, He challenges us, to be faithful in little things. In this context, it means not letting little things build until they become a big thing. If we are faithful to deal with something small before it becomes big, it will save us from the tyranny of big things, and make us eligible for greater things from God.

In case you’re new here

The entire “Helpful Tips for Saving Yourself from Trouble” series is in the archives, beginning with the first post on July 26, 2022. As the series continues, each succeeding post will be added to and available in the blog archives.

In addition, I’m creating a new online membership site, The Change Zone, that will provide information, strategies and resources to help motivated Christians renew their mind and transform their lives. If you would like to learn more about this and get updates to know when The Change Zone will be available, click here.

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