“Isn’t this the carpenter?”
(Mark 6:3)
Reflection:
There is something both simple and wonderful in the picture of the Son of God working with wood in the carpenter’s shop – to see Him holding something that He had made, or repaired, up to the light and saying to Himself with a quiet smile, “That’s good, very good.” It would be difficult to imagine Him turning out anything that was shoddy or designed to last only for a short period. This was the Man who had eternity as His focus, this is the maker of the world – and the One who washed feet.
Jesus gives a beauty and a dignity to all kinds of labour – a mother caring for her child, a gardener working with flowers and plants, an architect designing a building, the man who lays the bricks, a grandmother sweeping a station platform, a student puzzling over her textbooks, a window cleaner and a father washing the dishes. Whatever there is to be done can be made into something special, and completed with the words ‘that’s good!” It can become an offering to God.
Whatever we are called to do today can be done as an offering to God. And if we feel that it is useless or beneath us let us prove faithful in these things and trust our God of grace and love for the future. As He tells us through the Psalmist,
“Trust in the LORD and do good; ….
Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;” (Psalm 37:3-7)
Response:
I’ll do it for God
Prayer:
Father, please help me to make everything I do an offering to You. Amen.
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Softly, Spoke the River 