Jack of All Trades, Master of One?

We have all heard it before. How many people do we know who would describe themselves as a jack of all trades, master of none? I admit it, I am a man and I have this inner need to be able to fix anything. It is kind of demoralizing when you have to call in a repairMAN to fix something you can't figure out yourself. It is just a part of being a man, part of the way in which we are wired.

I often find myself taking in a lot of courses, classes, and books in that endless quest of knowledge of how things work. I always figured if I could know how things work, then figuring out how to fix them would certainly follow. My wife would certainly attest to the fact the the house if often cluttered with the remnants of these attempts and for all the effort, I often fall woefully short when it comes time to do the actual repairs.

I think I finally figured out the problem though. I think it is because I keep trying to be a jack of all trades and master of none. You see, you need to me a master of something if you are going to be good at effecting the repairs. Gaining knowledge and understanding that is a mile wide and a couple of inches deep only gives you enough knowledge to describe the problem more accurately to the repairman. It just doesn't give you the knowledge or skill you need to fix the problem. Think of the repairman. Their knowledge is a mile deep and an inch or so wide.

And so it is with my spiritual life as well. I spend an awful lot of time trying to learn everything about every aspect of a Christian life. I am sure others fall in this trap too. My wife so gently reminded me again this morning that God does not want us to be a jack of all trades, master of none. God wants us to be a jack of all trades and a master of one. What is that one trade we should strive to me a master of? Well of course it is loving God by serving Him in the task that we were made for. We were all wonderfully made by God's loving hands for a specific task in His Kingdom. We must strive to discern that calling we were made to fulfill and become a master in that calling so we can love our Master in the way in which we were made to do.

One Day at a Time

I was driving down the road the other day and I heard a guy on the radio talking about his recovery from alcoholism and how he relapsed at some point because of a stupid idea that he could just drink one more and then stop again. Later in the same day, my wife and I are talking and she talks about quitting smoking and how she made a bad decision to just smoke a couple more and it will be easy to quit again. I'm thinking wow, twice in the same day. Is this some kind of subliminal message from God?

Then I started thinking about our addiction to sin. Yes, I think in a way we are all addicted to some kind of sinful behavior. For some it might be lust, for others it might be greed, or many other of the sins that we find ourselves unable to stop. We pray for God to help us break these addictions and we sometimes do well for a season but then we make that fatal mistake to think we can go back just one time. Just one time, what will it hurt? We can always quit again. Then we find ourselves once again addicted and on our knees asking God for help again.

Maybe we should just use one of the AA principles on our sin addiction. How about just taking things one day at a time? Approach each day as a new day with no concern for past failures or successes. Start each day in prayer with God asking Him to get us through just one day without sin. Will that help in the battle? I certainly think it will. If we approach the problem one day at a time, perhaps we will later find a very long string of "one days" and a much stronger relationship with God.

Bah, Humbug

Over the holidays, my family watched the timeless classic, "A Christmas Carol," in a TV movie. Sometimes the scenes in the movie are a little comical to see a grown man acting so foolish over such a simple idea as Christmas. After all, who would not enjoy the family time and gift giving that has become such a part of Christmas for us? We watched the movie and had a few laughs at the expense of Mr. Scrooge. As I went to bed, I thought well that's it for that until next year. Or was it?

During lunch today, I continued to read a book I picked up a while ago called, "The Papa Prayer." It is written by a man named Larry Crabb. In it the author tells the story of how changing his prayer habits has resulted in changing his life and his relationship with God. Now who would not want a better relationship with God? I certainly would and God surely knows that my relationship with Him could use some definite improving. The part of the book I read today was making the point that we should concern ourselves with improving our relationship with God before we ask Him for things. In other words, make sure you are in a good relationship before you go asking for favors. It just made sense. If we ask for something from a good friend, we are certainly more likely to get it than if we ask someone we don't even know for something. So how do we do this? That is the big question.

The author suggests that we begin by presenting ourselves to God in our current state. This requires us to see ourselves as God sees us. Not the facade we put on the outside so others don't know who we really are. God can see right through all that window dressing. Nope, we need to see ourselves as we truly are and realize that God can see all those parts of us that we didn't want Him to see. When we do that we can present ourselves to God as we truly are in order to get to know Him better. The problem is that this is a painful experience for most of us. In fact the book suggests we just lay it all out to God. Tell him what a wretched person we are and how we feel inside when we act that way. As I thought of the prospect of presenting myself to God in this way, I had a vision of Mr. Scrooge at the end of his visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future. I had a vision of myself fully prostrate on the ground near God weeping in agony for the wretched creature I have become with no hope of salvation on my own. Using the imagery from the movie, I can clearly see that without Jesus' gift of atonement, I have no hope for any eternal future. I can clearly see how critical Jesus is to my future prospects and how I depend on God's mercy for my salvation.

The self-observation process for me definitely brought up a lot of past that I would just as soon forget, but it also helped me to fully understand my need for a Savior. As strange as it might be a painful process has worked a good in me. I definitely rejoice in knowing that I have a Savior that cares enough to lay his life down as punishment for my sins in order that we might enjoy eternal life with God the Father. In the words of an old commercial, who could ask for anything more?