01-11-2022, 12:19 AM
As I was reading and processing each sentence and paragraph, my brain was jumping ahead to your closing sentence before I actually read it. "In that sense, we hold an elite place without being actually elite."
I'm reminded of a catch-phrase or motto I've heard from one of those fire-arms training places. "Any gun will do, if you will do." Replacing "gun" with "tool"... It's not that another tool might not be "better qualified" to fill the role, but that the "tool at hand" is the one nearby and available, waiting on the Master to pick it up for His purpose, to bring about His glory.
If the claw-hammer is the tool at hand, when you find yourself in the garden or out by the mailbox trying to plant some bulbs, and the fancy bulb planter is back in the house/shed/garage... you just might decide to plant those bulbs with a claw hammer.
The tulips might be even more beautiful/healthy when planted that way. Who knows? (Or you might go get the bulb planter... God did chase Jonah down to deliver the message to Nineveh, even though Jonah wasn't particularly "available".)
Like a lot of people, I'm a sucker for a cool or clever tool. But owning that tool doesn't make me a master in the craft to which it's associated. Rather, being a master in that craft will likely allow me to take even unqualified tools and make something truly remarkable.
Those are some of the word-pictures that come to mind from reading your post.
Anyone talked to Iain lately?
I'm reminded of a catch-phrase or motto I've heard from one of those fire-arms training places. "Any gun will do, if you will do." Replacing "gun" with "tool"... It's not that another tool might not be "better qualified" to fill the role, but that the "tool at hand" is the one nearby and available, waiting on the Master to pick it up for His purpose, to bring about His glory.
If the claw-hammer is the tool at hand, when you find yourself in the garden or out by the mailbox trying to plant some bulbs, and the fancy bulb planter is back in the house/shed/garage... you just might decide to plant those bulbs with a claw hammer.
The tulips might be even more beautiful/healthy when planted that way. Who knows? (Or you might go get the bulb planter... God did chase Jonah down to deliver the message to Nineveh, even though Jonah wasn't particularly "available".)Like a lot of people, I'm a sucker for a cool or clever tool. But owning that tool doesn't make me a master in the craft to which it's associated. Rather, being a master in that craft will likely allow me to take even unqualified tools and make something truly remarkable.
Those are some of the word-pictures that come to mind from reading your post.
Anyone talked to Iain lately?
Benjamin