From beginning to end, yesterday was a picture-perfect day. For starters, the worship service at church was “awful” in light of the King James version of the Bible. Okay, so right out of the gate, I have garnered your attention. Who would say the pastor’s message was awful?
Legend has it that when Queen Anne of the British Monarch first saw St. Paul’s Cathedral, she said of the structure: “It is awful.” When the King James’ version of the Bible was written years earlier, the term awful meant awe-inspiring. Without doubt, if that interpretation of awful worked in the language of the day for the Bible translators, it worked for Queen Anne.
Our pastor always prefaces his message with a story from his week. I really like his approach. It is almost as if he is audibly asking the question of God: “What am I supposed to learn from this?
I appreciate his transparency and his willingness to be vulnerable. In addition, he always has the congregation hanging on to the story like a hummingbird discovering nectar for the first time. We get hooked first by his story and then by the Gospel-truth that follows. It carries with it the potential to be life-changing.
The thing about a good story is that most of us can relate to the narrative and see glimpses of ourselves in the storyline. Yesterday, he mentioned changing a sink faucet out for a customer. The thing that was painfully obvious to him right out of the gate was the thought that being smaller would have served him well. There was little room for him to move under the sink.
Both of his hands were elevated in spaces almost too small for their presence. I immediately had a flashback to the only time I have changed the faucet on a kitchen sink. I was a little reluctant to take on that task, but the General’s sister has done that more than once. I figured if she could, I could. Okay, so I don’t always get it right.
I won’t bore you with the details, but I had to go back to Home Deport to get a different wrench before I could finish the task. At any rate, the woman reportedly engaged the pastor in conversation while he was fighting claustrophobia with his head and upper body uncomfortably positioned inside the cabinet.
Okay, so I’m taking a few liberties here. Our pastor didn’t actually use the term “claustrophobia”, but I’m certain that was his experience. Like I said, “I’ve been there and done that once.”- Never again!
The lady mentioned that the sink had not been operable in thirteen years. The first thought that filled the pastor’s head was the question: “Is your husband dead?” Frankly, I thought that was knee-slapping funny! I guess you can interpret the question in a couple of different ways. Either way is worthy of a smile.
He didn’t verbalize the question, but the customer may have perceptively read his mind. She went on to share with him the message God has recently made known to her.
Whose to say? Maybe she has a laundry list of things she wants her husband to change about himself? God impressed upon her the importance of moving her focus from her husband’s faults or short comings to address some of the issues God wants modified in her own life. God impressed upon her the importance of doing the hard work in her own life first.
I guess in the final analysis, it gets back to our priorities. Do we want to mature and change to reflect more of God’s image, or are we content to be as useful as a sink that hasn’t been used in over a decade?
All My Best!
Don
Carpe Diem 