When I was a kid, I loved to help my dad with projects around the house. We mainly did yard work, but we also had a few bigger ongoing projects. The ones I can remember from being old enough to actually help include turning a screened in porch into a full sun room, re-shingling our roof, repainting the house, and turning a large back porch into three closed-in rooms.
As an adult, when I think back on all that I “helped” with as a kid, I can remember many times when my dad gave me a “special” job that ended up really not being such a big piece of the project at all. Bringing water, holding a door, and removing nails from the lumber in the trash pile are a few examples. As I got older, he let me do more and more, and at least the flooring and drywall in the sun room, he and I did without any help. I have used the skills I learned from that on multiple occasions as a homeowner myself!
But if all I did when I was younger was hold a door open, or get a hammer from the toolbox, did I really help very much? The answer, of course, is not that I helped my dad so much, or that I was some sort of construction whiz (I am definitely not, I can assure you). The reason why he gave me jobs that seemed big to me but that don’t seem so big to us now lies in the fact that I still remember them.
My dad was building a relationship. It was all about teamwork, and about helping in the project and being a part of the work that was going on. It wasn’t that he needed my help. It was that I needed to think he needed my help. And, as a dad I can also say, it was that he WANTED me to be involved and be on his team.
That is how God uses us in His work. He is doing a great work in the world today, even though a lot of evidence we see may seem to point to Him just sitting back, playing the role of an eternal clock maker who has wound up his invention and is just letting it tick away. The character of God revealed to us in His work and in the remnants of our Created Nature (thanks C.S. Lewis) show us that He is so much more involved than that. Even if we are just holding the tool box for the Master Builder in the infinite scheme of things, how blessed we are that He allows, even wants, us to be involved in what He is doing!
That is the lesson I am trying to teach my oldest son right now. He is only 3 years old, but he knows at least the names of almost all my tools (except for the planer. He still thinks that one can fly). It would be irresponsible of me, and very dangerous, to just hand him a hammer and nails and tell him to go hang up a picture. On the other hand, though, it would be wasting an opportunity for me to just turn on the TV for him while I go in the other room and do the “big boy” work like assembling a bookshelf or moving furniture. I want him to be a part of the project, and to feel like he helped his dad.
I want to help my Dad–not just my biological dad, but my Heavenly Father. I want to be involved in what He is doing. I want to bring Him water and hold the door and have Him pat my head and say, “Thanks, buddy. You’re a good helper.”
One day, when my son Sam is my age, I hope he tells people that he helped his dad re-floor the sun room when he was 3 yrs old! He did, by the way. He may not have carried a large percentage of the work, but he did help me. Even if he doesn’t remember it…I will.