Something New...to Screw Up!

Good Thursday! It appears that the hot days of summer have arrived, but appearances are only appearances. Yesterday, a brother in Christ called and asked me to help with some concrete work. Now, I have never, at least that I can recall, done any actual concrete work starting at the point where the big truck pulls in and drops the heavy piles of gray stuff. An adventure, a learning experience, a lot of work and sweat, mostly for those who knew what they were doing. I helped out as best I could and helped God deal with the panic attacks a new place and situation can bring on. Lesson 1, wear some kind of protective eye wear, concrete really spatters dropping off the chute and it does not easily come out of eyeballs and off contacts and such. Lesson 2, although concrete does not harden instantly, enough personnel with experience and labor ability are needed or you could easily create a permanent monument to incompetence.

I didn't mess up anything, but I also felt the sneaking shame of ignorance. This is a wrong feeling, of course. None of us knows everything, and new experiences are bound up in ignorance of the subject at hand. We learn by doing in some areas, and this is one where book learning does not convey the feel of wet concrete and other little tidbits that a mentor teaches. The new Christian is in the same place. We stand there having just surrendered our life to Jesus, and we are eager to begin reading the Bible, but not all is book learning. God left a sort of blank place in His life manual for mentors to teach disciples.

This is not to say that the Bible is incomplete, just that parts are difficult to understand and the depth of God's knowledge far outstrips our ability to absorb. Even the mentor of Christian disciples puts up a false front if he or she leads them to believe that the mentor holds all the answers and is never wrong. Yesterday's news from our Supreme Court brings up that point quite well. I don't have some neat answer for you in that area. I'll be going back to the Word of God for some more research. Prayer for our nation and its leaders is the best place to begin in this, and I encourage you and me to do that first.

Celebrate the blessing of God today!
Bucky.