Because That's What Faithfulness Does

I first noticed a bag of carrots covered in ice crystals in the vegetable bin of our refrigerator. I tried to ignore the refrigerator's obvious malfunction, hoping that somehow it was just a temporary glitch.

But within a few days, well, now the shredded cheese in an adjacent bin was also hard as a rock.  We tried our usual fix-it method:  Turn the appliance off and start it up again.  No change. 

I called the local repair shop, and a few days later, the technician Tim arrived. He did what the faithful do. He sized up the problem and got to work.  But there was something different here.  This did not seem like just another repair job for him.  He seemed to have a joy in doing the work, not having to do it but getting to do it.  As it turns out, he has been repairing refrigerators since 1988.  Just helping others in time of desperation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He took out all the shelves and drawers.  He worked on his hands and knees for almost three hours. From time to time, I could hear chunks of ice shattering. But he stuck with it, found the problem, and replaced the broken part.

In our culture, we talk a lot about calling.  Tim's calling was not to repair refrigerators -- although he was really good at it -- but called to serve and help others in their time of need.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  Hebrews 4. 16

May we be so mindful.  Not just aware of a problem, but also not ignoring what is before us. Doing something about it, not out of obligation, or not to earn someone's favor, or to be the hero, but out of the sheer joy of helping when we can and how we can.  We may not be able to do everything, but we can do something.  And first, to pray. Sometimes serving is just being there, being faithful to the work, and having a happy heart.  That kind of faithfulness is never without a witness for the God we love.

Images of the saints of old were recognized by what they held in their hands.  What do we hold in ours?  Tools in our toolbox to serve others.  When a friend's 18-year-old car needed replacing, she chose a small pickup truck, because it gave her delight in being able to serve others even more. The faithful to Jesus have always been marked not just by carrying a towel and basin (John 13. 4-5), but willingly using them, even in unrecognized ways. 

The faithful stuff is never insignificant. Faithfulness to what God has placed before us changes the world, even if it is fixing one refrigerator at a time.  During Covid, the media identified these quiet servants as "essential workers."  In her lifetime, my mom always acknowledged the mostly invisible battalions around her.  I can still hear her saying to the stock boy at the grocery or the women cleaning the bathrooms at a restaurant, "Thank you for your work."  She let them know she saw them and recognized their profound work. The faithful are watchful and attentive.

"We cannot ascertain what is valuable in God’s sight, nor what He can redeem," writes British author and pastor Rico Tice.

The faithful put down their heads and just do it.  Because they have an inner joy, far deeper than the task at hand.  Would you do this for Me?  

It may not be anything that others see, but knowing God is using it profoundly, beyond our understanding, out of sight, on the far side of words.  That's what faithfulness looks like. 

God uses the most unlikely among us to accomplish the most unexpected.  We can never know the reverberations of a needful act of grace.  There are no small kindnesses.  The awareness to be kind builds one layer upon another.  

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much... Luke 16. 10 

That is what I witnessed in my kitchen.  One who took delight in faithful work.  

May we all leave that imprint.

 

 

But Just Right

My mom was a professional violinist, and it always seemed, furiously practicing. Her fingers continually drummed even silently, practicing her repertoire, pieces she already knew and those she was engraving in her heart. She only ever read the Chicago Daily News, devouring it like the gospel itself, delivered on our driveway every afternoon.

Dad was a quintessential research scientist, crazy bushy eyebrows and all.  Even when he was home, well, he was not really there.  To him, reading was a waste of time. Why read when you could be inventing something?

My grandmother lived out my childhood with me.  She occupied a small first floor bedroom, busily keeping house for our family of six, including my two oblivious parents.

Every night, she pulled herself up the stairs with her arthritic knees to put me to bed with the story of the three bears.  It may have been the only story she knew by heart.  No book.  No pictures. Just the words. Just her raspy alto voice. Just the story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She didn’t talk about Goldilocks with beautiful long blond ringlets.  But she narrated the story of a little girl with unruly hair who wandered into a house looking for a place where she would fit in, a bowl just the right size, a comfy chair in a quiet room, being tucked gently into bed, no matter the chaos in the rest of the house. The story became a liturgy of memorized words and measured breaths. She sat sidesaddle on the edge of the bed, her soft warm leg leaning against mine.

I never knew whether the story was describing her life or mine.

I was not the curly-haired violin prodigy my mother wanted me to be, possessing legendary talent that compelled people to rise to their feet.  When I was old enough to read myself, I hid library books with a flashlight under my bed. Mom threatened to take them away.  “You’re going to ruin your eyes.”  “You could be practicing!” I was not just wasting time, but wasting my life. 

My three brothers pursued their own paths of giftedness, as one interest led yet to another. The house was a mess.  Mom commandeered the living room, her music piled high in stacks on the back of the piano and cups of cold forgotten coffee scattered everywhere like clues to a mystery.  My dad secluded himself in his laboratory at work, rarely realizing when it was time to go home. 

Dad thought in numbers and formulas.  All that mattered to Mom was notes.  For me, it was words. Dad loved his laboratory. Mom dreamed of Carnegie Hall.  I couldn’t wait to go to the library.  Three lives.  Three languages.

My grandmother saw our family's story being worked out page by page, and chapters unfolding season by season. And she understood me standing bewildered in the midst of it. The bears’ lives seemed so normal.  Quaker oatmeal in morning bowls.  A company of chairs in a book-lined living room. Soft beds with comforters.  And oh, how about a daily walk together in the woods?

Is that how other people lived?

I was never afraid of those ferocious bears.  Instead, they were a comfort to me, appearing in a story told faithfully every night. And always with a happy ending. Because in my heart, the little girl got to stay.

Close Encounters of the Wilderness Kind

There were better things I probably could have been doing than running on that sultry Tennessee-humid afternoon.  But I don't know what that would be. Cars inched past me on a paved nature loop, windows rolled up to keep the cool inside, the occupants comfortable and wide-eyed, looking for usual sightings that invite tourists and snarl traffic for miles.

I could have been one of them.  But I preferred being outside, running through the wilderness instead. 

There would be bears, I was sure of it. There always are. I see at least one almost every time I run that winding road. But what I witnessed while running that day was something I didn't expect. Something I will never forget.

One of my all-time favorite places to run is the 11-mile Cades Cove nature loop in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Weaving its way through a small valley surrounded by a ring of mountains, this narrow one-way ribbon of asphalt is known for wildlife sightings.  Or what our grandchildren call "rarely seen wildlife creature moments."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to see a black bear in the wild, Cades Cove is the place to be. You may also see deer, wild turkeys, an occasional coyote, and for sure, the continuous splendor of trees.  

Several years ago on a steamy summer day, it was not the wildlife that was so unforgettable. Hovering in the upper 80s, the day was far warmer than the forecast had promised. Running that hilly road around the Cove in that late July heat, I rejoiced in every bit of shade that decorated the pavement, short promised patches of coolness, moving from strength to strength.

The daunting hills seemed to rise even steeper than ever before.  As I lumbered along, I was reminded of the ancient psalms of ascent that the pilgrims sang on their way up to Jerusalem.  I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121. 1-2

They sang through the hard stuff.  When they worshiped, they were sustained and strengthened by something more. As are we.

When I run, my unhurried pace urges reluctant thoughts to the surface. Going slow sharpens my eyes to what is hidden along the way, grasping the sight of a shy doe, a red-tailed hawk soaring, or a blanket of trillium in full bloom.  The mere act of running on long lonely roads dredges up prayers I would have never prayed otherwise, each pounding step shaking things up inside, and changing me a little bit more.  Running is not just a physical endeavor.

I think about stuff when I run. I write stories in my head. I compose essays. I pray differently in the fellowship of really big trees. And sometimes I sing out loud like the pilgrims.  Because in those moments, only God can hear me.

Just halfway around the loop that afternoon, I was already dragging, my tank top saturated, glued to my skin, and sweat smearing my sun glasses.  And there were many more hills ahead and miles to go before I was done.

Discouragement whispered to me like naysayers along the sidelines, stop, stop, stop, matching the rhythmic pattern of my feet and labored breathing. But I know from previous runs that to stop running on an uphill is a sure defeat. To get started again takes more than physical strength. To keep on running, I knew to keep my head down, looking only at the next step. And then the next. And occasionally, like the pilgrims, lifting my eyes to the trees surrounding me like so many sentries standing at attention on a parade route. Keep on, keep on, keep on, they urged.

I knew this familiar slope. I had run it many times before.  There was indeed an end to this hill.   But it was still hard.  Rented jeeps, SUV's packed with kids, and Dodge Rams with beer drinkers in the back rumbled past me up the hill, over and out of sight, racing past to see the sights.  Most never even noticed as they squeezed me over to the crumbling edges of the asphalt. No shoulders here, no margins.  At times, I stepped into the shallow rocky ditch to accommodate the vehicles.

As I approached the top of that particular hill, running on empty, I noticed a large black SUV pulled over on the side of the narrow road.  I was curious about what the driver saw, perhaps a bear lazily rambling across the road or climbing a tree, or maybe he was awestruck by the tabernacle of the forest,  taking in the glory instead of rushing past the wonder of this sacred place. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But this driver saw something entirely different.  

I slowly reached the ridge, ready to pass him by, when I stopped short.  His window slid down. A hand reached out holding an icy dripping bottle of water right out of a cooler.  He didn't say anything.  He just smiled.  I did not know him.  He was a stranger, as I was to him.  And he had been waiting for me.

I almost cried. 

He saw me struggling.  And he did what he could do.  Kind people live hilariously like that.

Kind hearts always look differently at the scenery around them.  They see others with new eyes and a fresh heart, recognizing and responding to outward needs or inward struggles that others don’t even see. 

In his devotional My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers points out:  Readiness for God means that we are ready to do the tiniest little thing or the great big thing, it makes no difference. 

Not out of any kind of obligation, but compelled by a hidden joy.

The kindhearted don’t contemplate if they should help, but think about how they can help.  Even the smallest acts of kindness shift the tectonic plates of the universe.  They may offer something to fill a momentary physical gap, come alongside to walk or run or listen, sometimes to encourage in word or deed, but always giving what is more tangible and eternal than we can ever comprehend.

And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.  Matthew 10. 42

It was only a disposable bottle of water.  But not in God’s sight – nor in my own present need. Instead, it manifested the profound ministry of the cup of cold water, revealed by Jesus in scripture and played out through the ages, transforming ordinary moments into extraordinary ones, full of the recognizable grace of God.

Doing something kind every day for a long time makes it really hard not to do it. 

I don’t know if this man was able to observe the black bear he had driven to see in the national park. But he changed the course of my day by his selfless vision of what he did see.  My cup runneth over with the compassion I was given, an act of mercy and grace, a profound and rare moment never soon forgotten. 

I doubt it was the first time he stopped to help a stranger or a friend. Nor his last. 

Just because he could. 

Just because we can.

The One That Didn't Get Away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a long slow morning. No fish in sight, although we knew they were there.  No bites. No hits.

But in the most unexpected places and ordinary days, God surprises us in unsuspecting ways. Perhaps a fish in an unlikely stream. Sometimes a lot more astonishing than that.

God may not give us that big trophy fish we want, but He is generous in what we need ....or what someone else desperately needs.  Even if we may not realize it in that moment.

We go into a situation -- or even this day ahead of us -- with a lot of expectations, or none at all -- of what we will find, what we will do, or even what we think God should do.  But we have only to be faithful in following Him.

God does not call us to abandon our ordinary work or occupations, where He has strategically positioned us, but to see it differently.  God enlarges our vision.  He has rooted us in these places and postures not just for doing something to fill up our time, but by being responsive to the people around us -- ministering, blessing, encouraging, lifting up, bring the name of Jesus to this hard and barren patch of ground, and giving grace the space to grow there.  It is an exercise in "Trust Me in this."

Just an ordinary, mundane day at work, school, or wherever we find ourselves today?  Never.  See it differently:   the care of souls.  

And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."  Matthew 4. 19

We may not catch anything we can take a picture of.  But stay at it.  And carry a big net.  God is giving us a bigger story. God is blessing people through us -- and for the most part, we are unaware of it.

The fish are there.  We just don't often recognize those opportunities scurrying through the deep.

I can never seem to see fish swimming in the streams.  But one time when my husband was fishing, I meandered over an old bridge, enjoying the view. I looked down below the surface of the water.  "Boy, that is weird how those rocks are all lined up like that," I thought.  And then I realized, those were not rocks, but huge trout lined up like planes on the runway at O'Hare airport. Oh, wow, was all I could say.

At the end of the day, fishing is not just about how many fish we catch, because if it was, there would never be enough. But surrounding us is what God brings into this day.  And that is always more than we can imagine.  Look up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enlarge our vision in this day, O LORD.

Keep us faithful even in the ordinary, even in the drought.

May we embrace deeper things in this day.

And be responsive to You.