What’s your favorite tool? Which tool do you use the most? Your smart phone? Your computer? Your oven? Your mixer? Your frig? Your vehicle? Your keyboard? Your musical instrument? Your cordless drill? Your chop saw? Your camera? Your drawing tools or paint brush? Your voice? What did you discover as you began to reflect with me on your favorite tool? How often do you use your favorite tools to create for God?
What is God’s favorite tool? Which tool does He delight in using the most? You! Your life is a one-of-a-kind tool branded by your Designer, the God of the universe. You were uniquely created to fulfill the purpose of your Designer. Everything that God gave you is to be used to share His message of hope. Jesus was abused and killed and resurrected to give us new life and freedom from our old sin-filled lives. Your life is the tool that God daily sharpens to cut right to the heart of the world’s issues and its deepest need.
You must hone and share your gifts and harness the power of God’s Spirit that is living and channeled through you. No one else has your unique experiences, giftings, passion, relational web, or calling. You have everything that you need to make disciples and make a difference right where you are. You don’t need to go halfway around the world to be a missionary. Just love people completely from the heart. It starts in your home, your school, your workplace, and your neighborhood.
The problem is that we get organized around people and problems. We get distracted and consumed with what doesn’t matter and with what doesn’t last. How much can I get done today? What did I forget to do today? What can I eat today, drink today, or watch next today? Who won the election? How many people got the virus? How can I protect myself and stay away from people? Am I getting sick? Am I going to die? Will I have enough to live on? Does anyone really care about me? Why should I even care? I’m so stressed out and worn out. Sound familiar?
But we’ve been called out of darkness and sin and bondage to declare that Jesus forgives sin and that He sets captives free! You won the election! You get to preside over your people group. You get to teach them everything that God has taught you—in love. You get to shape and impact the generations around you who are anxious, fear-driven, hiding out, and turning to their next drink or device. Your life is the Master’s tool to shape and create what’s needed most in our world: genuine Christ-followers.
The Tool Maker has designed me to be a relationship surgeon. My words and tools cut right to the heart of people’s issues and relational struggles. God uses me to cut out what’s sick and destroying people’s lives and relationships. He uses me to communicate His truth spoken in love to bring life, connection, healing, and hope. I get to help and encourage and disciple God’s beloved children, and so do you.
Yesterday, God taught me an important lesson. I invested my entire day putting in a new floor in our small, upstairs bathroom. My bathroom is on the third floor, my shop and tools are in the basement. I set the world record for the most steps in a day. I used every tool that I could find and contorted my body in every position that it shouldn’t have been put in. I used every ounce of energy and creativity and strength that I had. By midnight, I ached in every place that I could feel pain, and I had nothing left to give. I held nothing back because I’d given myself completely to my task. But at midnight, I still had one more 4-inch section to complete when my body yelled: STOP!
Right before I started my project, my friend Josh called because he needed help with a project. I tore off all of the protective guards from my radial arm saw to make some difficult 55-degree angled cuts on his boards to complete his project. It wasn’t safe, and my aging saw didn’t like it. It turned off many times in the middle of my attempts to cut through the boards, and I thought my saw was headed for the grave. It wouldn’t start, but it miraculously turned on again, and we did it. When Josh inspected the cuts, he noticed that he had miscalculated, and we started all over again. But when we got done, he was so pleased, and I was thankful to still have 10 fingers and a saw that still works.
A couple hours into my flooring project, my wife asked me to take a walk with her on a gorgeous day. We found some people along the way, and we marveled at how God orchestrated our meeting people who needed Jesus and His encouragement. I found one of my old friends who once lived in the men’s homeless shelter, and I said “hi” to him. But I didn’t stop and spend time with him, and it still bothers me. My wife encouraged me to stop and invest in his life, but I knew the tasks ahead of me were waiting.
Here’s the life lesson God is teaching me. We are His tool. Helping people and building relationships is our task. We must drop everything and risk everything and do what we don’t want to do in order to show His love and to make disciples. We must do what’s inconvenient and what hurts and take off all of our guards and protections and cut right to where we must cut to get the job done. And at the end of the day, the job isn’t done. It’s never done. What counts is what we’re doing with and for Christ and for the people that we love and for the people that He died for so that they can be free.
Here’s the message that God is teaching me. “Give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life. Use your whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God” (Romans 6:13b).
Amen brother!