Woke up on Thursday morning – asked the Lord to be in my day
and committed myself to paying attention to Him in all of my ordinary moments –
just as I had spent three weeks preaching about. – then off to the church
office where I had blocked out the day to finish my message and some desk work.
Of course this is “important” “valuable” work and time well spent! Somewhere along about 1:30pm I just got stuck
in my sermon prep and instead of working through it I decided to find a
diversion – the men’s bathroom in the sanctuary needed a new float mechanism –
maybe I will just do that … Master
plumber that I am I shut the water valve off by the back of the toilet, pulled
out the float, put in a new one, reconnected the water line and turned the
water valve back on – simple… except there wasn’t any water coming through.
HMMM – turned the valve off again and pulled off the water line to see if it
was clogged – nope – looks good, and then I noticed that there appeared to be
something blocking the actual valve coming from the wall; that’s when it
happened - without warning – a couple
pebbles along with the interior parts of the valve shot out the top of the
valve followed by an unstoppable explosion of water halted only by the ceiling
of the bathroom!! I turned the valve shut – but it just spun round and round as
the bathroom began filling with water. In a feat of incredible strength I
stopped the water with my left thumb, grabbed my wet cell phone and began dialing
the office upstairs – no answer! So I began to shout for help in between the
occasional moments I could not hold the water back and it would blast up in my
face. Finally I just let go and raced
upstairs for the water box key, back down the stairs and outside to shut off
the water and then back inside only to see water pouring out into the sanctuary
– wrong valve –back outside, around the building and finally shut it down…..
Completely soaked I began to mop up the mess which also included
the basement bathroom since the water had found its way down there through the
ceiling… I went over to see the Ace “helpful hardware man” down the street - I didn’t even have to tell him the problem
as he looked at me – completely soaking wet holding out the old valve. That was
embarrassing! Back to church, a couple trips up and down the stairs and I replaced
the valve – all is well again – I better get back to ”valuable” work at my
desk… except that somewhere along the line I had locked my keys in my office! GRRR! Using a credit card – a trick I learned
in college – I finally got the door open – 15 minutes later.
I could say things got better as I applied myself to my work
but it didn’t. I was so wet I didn’t want to sit at my desk – and I wasn’t of a
very spiritual mind at the moment anyways – so back to another diversion – the
kitchen sink drain in the Discipleship House had been draining super slow. All
I can say is that after much investigation I discovered that just under the
sink cover plate there was probably 30 years of buildup completely blocking any
drainage – I would include a picture but it was far too disturbing for public distribution– I scooped it out, - yuck - scrubbed it down and got it running
clean and free again.
Back at my desk – after several hours – I sat down and
started back into my message – we are on the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1.
No wonder I was stuck. This was not how
this day was supposed to go – have I done anything of value? I read though the genealogy again – lists of
people, generations, some very faithful and some not so nice and more than a
few who were of a very poor reputation … and then Jesus! I was suddenly reminded of all these lives
lived, lives full of opportunities, failures, strengths, weaknesses and years
and years of ordinary moments…. And Jesus was born into that family tree and
into those same moments and moved through His days like us, and probably
experienced ordinary, maddening days like mine had been. Their stories were
much like ours and the genealogy showed that the Lord was in those lives and
days All the moments are part of the whole picture, part of my shaping,, all enfolded
into God’s greater story.
Then I remembered our series on “Sanctification of the
Ordinary” – that all our work was of value and how we were reminded to use the
ordinary moments – even the difficult and frustrating ones – as an opportunity
to turn freshly to Jesus – to see Him in all those places and also to learn to
stop amidst all the moments and remember that He is the one who does the work –
to be refreshed in the stopping.
And so finally I stopped and rested and reflected and
listened. Sermon prep, toilet and drain
repairs, locked doors, wet trips to the hardware store – all were gifts
–opportunities to pay attention to Him, to be more like Him, to reflect Him no
matter what work I was doing.
I Cor. 10:31 - So, whether you eat or drink, or
whatever you do,
do all to the glory
of God.