Lessons from the Wood Shop

We continue to be blessed and challenged daily. We just had the privilege of sitting under the teaching of Dr. Tom Elliff for the past several days. We learned so much as he shared with the group. He is one of those guys who knows the Lord so intimately and knows the Bible like the back of his hand. Usually, those are the kind of guys that are really annoying and can't relate at all to the common man/woman. This guy is awesome though. His teaching style is to break everything down to most simple form instead of talking over everyone's head. He also had a ton of really cool stories that he used to reinforce his points.

He told a story about a time he and his granddad were in the wood shop building a piece of furniture together. His granddad was holding two pieces of wood together and asked Tom to hand him a certain tool. Tom wasn't sure what tool he was referring to, so he guessed and began to reach for the wrong one. His granddad said, "No, the one right up there." Tom took another shot at it but still guessed wrong. Again, his granddad tried to point him in the right direction. On the third try Tom got it right. When he went to hand the tool over, his grandad said "Never mind, I already used this screwdriver to do the job. It wasn't the best tool for the job, but it was the one closest to my hand." His grandad stopped and told him "God doesn't always use the best suited tool for the job but the tool closest to his hand." He explained how so many people in this world seem more gifted/qualified for certain tasks but they will never be used because they are far from God.

God has really used that story to issue a challenge to my heart. My prayer is that I will be close to the Lord's hand, that I will make myself available to Him.