Wednesday, September 04, 2019

How Fitting



There are people to whom you owe a great deal. This is from June 4, 2011.

I met Becki and Randy thirteen years ago when I moved to Houston. Becki worked in our upper school office and Randy served on the WCS Board of Directors. Over time, I've taught their son in Bible classes and worked with their grandson in basketball camp. This Christian couple is amazingly generous, helping me out on my mission trips financially and donating to our Honduras orphanage project at school. Several weeks ago, we were together at a convention and Becki told me she had something else for me. Randy is a lawyer and apparently it's very important in his business to appear in court in the latest fashion in men's apparel. He had four Joseph A. Bank suits that they were going to give me as his closet had to be updated. Now, when she brought them, I couldn't tell they weren't brand new. But it did not stop there. Becki  took me to their tailor and had her seamstress alter each of the eight pieces to fit me and then paid for them herself. I came out of that alteration shop a new man, at least on the outside. Thanks to my good friends, I'm going to have to find reasons to get dressed up. I have no excuse any more!

Wasn't that a kind gesture, the clothes plus the alterations? I could have worn the suits as they were but there is a slight problem: Randy is taller than me. He's not a foot taller but enough to make a difference in the sizes we wear. Randy's clothes fit him and now with some work, they fit me. Have you ever worn shoes that are not your size? It's a distraction at best and can cause discomfort and safety concerns. Things just work best when they fit properly. In Ephesians 6, when Paul is speaking of dressing in the armor of God, he used the phrase,  "with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace." Ill fitting just doesn't cut it. Sometimes, we might be might be fit for limited numbers of things. I'm pretty good in some areas and woefully deficient in others. At the end of the school year, there were a great number of staples remaining in my classroom wall. Unless you want to rip your fingernails out, there's only one efficient (and painless) way to extract those small pieces of metal; a staple remover. Staple removers aren't attractive; just a claw like contraption with only one function. But, some smart person designed it for that one purpose and it is amazingly proficient at the one task it has been assigned. The Lord designed us to do His work and He equipped us as well. Our task might be small in our eyes but not to the Lord. Thanks to Him, we are suited for work in the kingdom. We just have to make sure our gifts and our assignments are matching ones. Kind of like me and my new suits!



Applicable quote of the day:
"I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me."
Warren Buffett


God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

2 comments:

Cathy said...

Nice post Mr. Hawley. I forgot how nice it is to look at everything in our daily life and see some kind of correlation to God and the Bible.

Saberes Catarinenses said...

Boa tarde amigo, passei para desejar que sua semana seja uma soma de realizações, abraços. “O tempo presente é tão fugaz que não é percebido até que se transforme no minuto anterior, chamado passado”.