A couple weeks ago there was a string of days on 2 Peter so I camped on that for a few days. I was reading in a few different English versions and came across something in the New Living Translation that jumped off the page:
“Knowing God better leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow in genuine love for everyone.”
This is our gas stove and accompanying gas tank:
Every few weeks the gas runs out. “It always happens while I’m cooking something,” I grumble. (Like when else is a gas tank going to run out? Of course while you’re using it. But still – in the middle of baking or cooking it just seems conspired somehow). So it’s out. There’s no more heat. The cake (or biscotti…yeah, I’m still a little bitter about my ruined batch and the ensuing gas tank failures) falls, the chicken is attempting to become bacteria-free at 100 F before you realize what’s happened and dinner guests are waiting. You free the tank of the regulator with a wrench, bring the new, full, heavier-than-all-get-out tank into the kitchen, hook it up with the wrench and check for leaks. Or maybe the spare tank is empty or has a leak. Then you call for a new one. But maybe your supplier is out, so you wait for tomorrow. It’s drudgery. There’s nothing about changing a gas tank or calling for new ones or waiting that makes me happy or feel satisfied or inspires me with some high ideal to keep living here. Nothing.
However, somehow I’ve become convinced this task (along with all the other tasks in my life I would consider “less than ideal” work), this bane of my existence in my pink kitchen, has built up my endurance level, self-will, and self-control so that I can more easily stop and take time to feed a hungry person, to study language, to go on visits, to give teaching literacy my best shot each day and to love beyond myself. Whenever I take on this task, this responsibility, I know I’m growing in patient endurance. It’s like working out for my soul.
Someone pretty wise told me through most of my middle and high school years that “leaders pick up trash.” If you want to be someone who turns up to be respected and worth their salt – go and start picking up the trash when the meeting’s over. Do the things that need to get done. At the time, I think I just saw that as like a “servant leader” type of deal – first shall be last, etc. But there’s more – the qualities of someone worth listening to are developed in the daily doing.
I’ll leave us with a repeat of an Oswald quote from a previous post because it just keeps ringing in my ears:
"Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome and dirty work."- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
