Housekeepers and Nails, You are Warned

Have you ever noticed that something interesting happens when you touch something hot, such as a steaming kettle? Other than getting burned of course; there will be a flash of premonitory pain, so brief that it’s hardly a pain at all, more of a warning that a true pain is to come. And then the premonitory pain will subside, and there will be an instant in which there is no sensation at all, and in that instant you’d snatch your hand, away from whatever it was that was too hot. But it would be too late; the true pain was already coming, and there would be nothing you could do about it except ready yourself for its arrival, like a housekeeper forewarned about the imminent arrival of a guest, like the way the tide recedes just before a tsunami strikes. A tsunami of pain.

But this post isn’t about pain.

The above was simply to set up a premise to explain the following;

That it is much like coming to a realization; almost hearing the wheels within your head turning, meshing, and moving along a path which you know can only end in a conclusion. Knowing that some brilliantly stray thought has been snagged in the net your ever active brain has cast, and then, silence. For an instant in time your thoughts are no longer thoughts, but simply knowledge, and things in which you are assured to be true. And then it hits you the same way a hammer falls upon the head of the nail it is hitting. Like an explosion of truth expanding outwards, filling your brain with awareness; realization.

At least that’s how it happens for me, my face temporarily morphing itself into my blur look, followed by an exclamatory oh!

So what’s this all about?

It’s not about pain, and it’s not about how I come to a realization either.

Ultimately, it is about the realization itself.

How very often we have heard someone great say that they were called into the area of their ministry, and how I so envy those with such a clear direction to follow. And so by hearing this, we pray for a direction, by asking something such as; “Where do you want me to go, what do you want me to do?” We ask for specifics, and not to say we never get them, just that we don’t always. We ask the ever so common; “Do you want me to go into the music ministry? Or education? Or even full time ministry? What do you want me to do?!”

I asked for specifics, and not to say I never get them, just that I don’t always. This wasn’t one of those times that I did.

Then after months of prayer and much thought, while outside training my parkour, a memory suddenly pounded on the inside of my brain, stating something so blatantly obvious that I almost decided to find and punch something extremely hot as my punishment. It was a lesson from the Westminster Shorter Catechism that my father had gone through with me; the very first one in fact. It stated that “Mans’ chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him fully.” So eargerly I had set out into fulfilling it, wondering which way He wanted me to do so. I had been acknowledging that my purpose is to glorify God, and typically had been asking Him what He wanted me to do, or where He wanted me to go.

But then, hammer to my head, it hit me; my purpose is to glorify God. No more, no less. Pure beauty in simplicity.

I no longer needed someone to tell me where my field lied, for the choice was my own. All I had to do is keep in mind that I am to glorify God, pick a means in which I think I can best utilize to fulfill that end, and do it to my very best.

He does not care so much as to what you use to glorify Him, but more so that you do.

So housekeepers, you were warned of the arrival of this guest.

I can already hear the nails falling down in unconsciousness; the result of being hit by a hammer.