A couple of things really caught my attention this week. Well, more than a couple but there is only enough room to express my thoughts on a couple of them.
First, I fixed a water leak for a lady underneath her kitchen sink. It was a conglomeration of galvanized pipe, copper tubing, PVC and pex. It kinda looked like a little kid had gone crazy with his Legos underneath there. There was about 15 too many fittings under there and as you know the more fittings used the more chance of a leak and when I got there, a couple leaks had sprouted and were running water everywhere.
Now, this redneck has used southern ingenuity before. Sometimes after the store has closed you have to adapt and overcome and figure out a solution. Sometimes you have to use all the spare parts in your arsenal just to fix something that if you had the right parts, could have been fixed with three, just like in this case, but it was a sight to see.
Then as I was headed home, I got to thinking about how sometimes Jesus doesn’t use the prettiest things in the world to teach. I mean after all, look at me.
Whoever plumbed that in before me didn’t do the best job in the world, but it held and worked for years. Lots of times we aren’t very pretty, especially in our lives. We all have valleys we go through and lots of times our heads are underneath water, but if we listen close, God will use us.
We carry such a weight sometimes that we can barely stand up and Jesus reaches down, grabs us by the hand and leads us on. Sometimes, even when we can’t stand by ourselves, He drags us along. His grip is tight and eventually he will pop you up out of the muck and mire, like a ski boat pops you out of the water on a lake.
I talk a lot about my faith, probably too much. Sometimes people aren’t ready to hear about Jesus and apply it to their lives. I get that. I was that way for a long time. But when that day comes, and you realize all that extra plumbing you have underneath your kitchen sink doesn’t matter to Jesus, that is a day of freedom, folks. You can understand how the ugly and unattractive and nasty things you try and keep hidden underneath your sink are talking points to help others understand that each one of us has things we aren’t proud of, and the fact that in spite of those things, Jesus loves us and has set a place at his table for us, indeed makes us feel like our cup overflows.
Secondly, I would like to talk a little about Harrison Butker’s commencement speech at Benedictine, a private Catholic school.
I’ve already said I would have chosen my words a little different, but all in all I can’t disagree with much of what he said. Instead of bickering between what was said and what should have been said, I want to talk a little about what I see coming out of this.
I think more than any time in our recent past, I see scores of people yearning for something more.
Something more than what people tell us we should be striving for. Something that seems to not fit into the box that we are all told is important. I see people craving a spiritual forecast – something that adds substance to their lives, something that makes a little bit of sense in these times that just don’t make any at all.
I feel like we are in the beginning of a spiritual renaissance. I see people clinging to the hope that they find something in their lives that tells them their life has meaning. Everyone will not find that meaning in Christ. It would have been so easy for Him to impose his will on his, but He didn’t do that.
Those that do find meaning in Christ understand that comfort and grace and love and mercy come in numerous places. It might be a woman in a corporate office where she can run a company, or it might come in her home where she can instill values and traits in her children and everyone else that she comes into contact with that are Christ-like. Here is the neat thing about Jesus: with his help she can be successful in both locations, at work and at home.
Motherhood and raising families is a noble profession. Working outside of the home is as well. Nothing says, nor did his speech say, they are mutually exclusive.
I think people who want to get beyond the sound bites understand that, or Butker’s jersey sales wouldn’t be going through the roof, all while being propelled by women consumers.
Make no mistake about it, there are people who want to continually tear us apart. Let’s not let them.
Philippians 2:3 says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition. Rather, in humility, value others before yourselves.”
We won’t always agree but, if we can value others, we will see that those trying to tear us apart are the work of the devil. Enough of his flaming darts get by us on good days. Let’s not open the door and just let them come flying in.
Talk to you next week.
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