This week's story is from Rev. Garland Wittmayer, pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church, Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. Pastor Gary, as he is known, tells about his love for tools and a desire for a complete set.
"For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly
Father knows that you need them."
(Matthew 6:32)
From little boy on I have been enamored by tools. I have never seen a tool I didn't like or didn't want. There are certain basic tools that every budding mechanic needs.
As a young man in my teens, I already had quite a collection of tools, but I decided that I needed a complete set of drill bits starting with 1/64 inch and going all the way to 1/2 inch by 64ths. I looked through the catalogs. A complete set was very expensive. I dropped hints to my parents and friends until I was sure I would get a set as a gift.
My father was a wise man. On one giving occasion I was sure he had given me my complete set of drill bits. When I opened the package, I found a drill stand. You know, one of those stands with the proper-sized holes for drill bits, 1/64-1/2 inch by 64ths. I filled in the holes with the bits I had. The empty spaces were obvious.
With this gift came my father's wisdom and this advice: "Don't just go buy bits. Buy them as you need them." After a number of years of following that advice, there were still many empty spaces in the stand. Then I got a real job and began to fill the empty places just to say I had a complete set.
Thirty years have come and gone since I completed that set. Many of the common sizes have been sharpened or replaced several times. Some have never been used...but I have a complete set!
God promises strength for the day. He promises to supply what we NEED. Too many of us feel that we don't have a complete set of whatever it is we think we need for daily living. If only I had a complete set of faith, money, courage, ability, talent, patience, love, forgiveness, etc., I would be more content and a lot more successful than I am now.
God promises to supply what you NEED! On the basis of His promise, realize that you have enough faith, patience, love and forgiveness to see you through.
What He has made available to you in His Son is His guarantee that it is enough. The victory is assured with what is available to you. For most of us the problem is non-use rather than non-possession.
I came to look at my drill set not in terms of which holes were still open, but in terms of which were filled. The lesson for daily living is simple. Use and enjoy what you have instead of fretting about what you don't have. Jesus said, "The Father knows that you need them."
You are your Father's child. You have not been shortchanged.
When I first read Pastor Gary's story, I remembered a time that a member said to me, "If I win the lottery, I'm going to give $1 million to the church." It was in the early days of Missouri's lottery and the stakes had grown to where a winner would receive about $10 million.
I thought about answering that person with, "Are you sure God wants His church supported with lottery money?" But I didn't. Then I thought about just saying: "No you won't. If you are not tithing from what God gives you now, you won't tithe when you win the lottery." I didn't say that either.
Jesus said, "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you--and even more" (Mark 4:24). God gives us His measure of a complete set. We may think we're missing something, but we have all we need.