“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. – Isaiah 55:8-9
“Use the right tool for the job,” my dad used to say, and I came to believe this with a passion. That changed years ago when my new bride, Rose, shook the foundation of my tool belief system to its core.
We had just moved into our first house, a modest three-bedroom starter home still smelling of fresh paint, when she asked, “Jake. Will you help me hang some pictures?”
“Of course,” I replied and went to the garage to fetch the tools. “Hammer, nails, measuring tape, level, pencil, stud finder, drill and bits, dry-wall anchors, slotted screwdriver for the anchor screw. Done.”
I returned to see Rose standing near the soon-to-be picture wall. Two dozen framed family photos lay strewn around her. With one hand on her hip and the other cradling her chin, she was deep into sizing up the project. I couldn’t help but take a moment to admire her. She wore canvas deck shoes, capri jeans, and a blue flannel shirt tied at the waist. She had pulled her light brown hair high into a sassy pony-tail, and she looked as cute as any young bride could ever hope to. As they say, I had married up.
I spread out the tools and asked, “where do you want the first one?”
“Here,” she said pointing, “but I’ll do it.”
Before I could object, she grabbed the slotted screwdriver. What did she plan to do with the screwdriver? Obviously, she needed the benefit of my experience. I drew a deep breath, puffed out my chest, and began a lecture on proper picture hanging. “Sweetheart,” I said gently, “we need to measure and mark the place for each picture first. Then, we need to find the studs so we’ll know whether to use nails or dry-wall anchors.”
“Oh, that’s nonsense.” She scoffed with a mischievous wink. What a lovely bride, I thought. She’s lucky I’m here to show her how to do this. As I opened my mouth to offer further explanation she turned, and using the screwdriver like a punch, rather violently poked a hole through the dry wall. My mouth, still open in its pre-oratory splendor, produced no sound. She snatched up a dry-wall anchor, flipped the screwdriver around, and tapped the anchor into the wall. I was aghast. Next, using the screwdriver for its intended purpose, she screwed in the anchor screw. “Be a sweetheart and hand me that picture,” she said pointing to one of her parents. “Oh, and close your mouth, Dear. You’re starting to drool.”
She repeated this exercise and in less than an hour had all of the pictures hung. Not just hung, but spaced evenly and level. I couldn’t believe it. Then, I spotted a mistake. A hole; one
she’d decided not to use. My chance to inject a smidgin of order into what I saw as chaos had come. “I’ll get spackle, putty knife, and paint,” I announced and dashed to the garage, returning
mere moments later. “I’ll have this patched in a jiffy.”
“No need,” she said, sounding curiously proud of herself.
“What do you mean?”
“I got some toothpaste and spread it with the screwdriver.”
I went to the spot on the wall and couldn’t believe my eyes. The hole had been filled perfectly. “Huh,” was all I could muster.
An hour later, when the toothpaste had dried, she used the screwdriver to pry the lid off the paint can, then again to stir the paint. I cringed. She wiped down the shaft with a paper towel, and leaving just a little paint on the blade, dabbed some over the toothpaste-filled hole. “There. All done,” she said and stood back to admire her wall of pictures. I had to admit that it looked great.
I’ve reflected many times on that day hanging pictures. Fortunately, I had the good sense let her work the way she saw as best. It became kind of a fascination of mine to see what unique
ways of accomplishing things she’d come up with, and not just around the house. What a tragedy it would have been if I’d squashed her creativity simply because her methods didn’t line up with my expectations.
***
Jake’s new bride had her own way of hanging pictures that smacked his sense of the “right way” in the face. He chose his reaction wisely, though, and enjoyed the blessings of doing so.
Have you noticed that God has His own way of doing things, too? Sometimes when He’s working, we miss it because our traditions or biases blind us. We believe that God surely would not do that particular thing in that very wrong (in our eyes) way.
We don’t have any accounts of God hanging pictures in the Bible, but we do have countless other examples of Him at work. He often called his people to break tradition, act counter to popular culture, or do things that seemed to make no sense. People thought Noah was crazy to build a ship on dry land nowhere near water. That worked out well for him and his family, though.
Imagine how the giant Goliath must have laughed when God sent a shepherd boy to stand against him with only a sling. That wasn’t a good day for Goliath.
Do you recall the ship God sent to ferry the prophet Jonah to Nineveh? No? That’s because God didn’t send a ship. He sent a great fish that swallowed the reluctant prophet then spit him out on the shores of Nineveh. Nobody, especially Jonah, saw that one coming.
Then there’s Moses, the man God called to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian captivity. His resume said he was the son of a Hebrew slave and a murderer. Oh, and he was eighty years old, too. Were I hiring for his position, I would have unwisely passed on Moses.
What about Joshua at the battle of Jericho? God didn’t instruct Joshua’s army to use heavy artillery to topple the walls of Jericho. Instead, He told them to shout. That’s right. Shout. The walls crumbled into rubble.
Later, when Rome controlled much of the world, God’s people had been waiting for a great warrior to deliver them, but that wasn’t the way God wanted to do things. Not even close. Instead, He sent a baby, born into a poor family to bring salvation not through a conquering army, but by dying on a cross.
These are but a few of the many examples of the unexpected ways God works. He doesn’t respect tradition or conventional wisdom, so don’t be surprised when he calls you to do something in a way that might make you uncomfortable. Pray for God to prepare your heart that He might use you in a fresh, exciting, and unexpected way, then wait for the adventure to begin.
John Talbert
WBC Member
