Make good tables.
The 5th word of the Bible (at least in our English versions) tells us something simple and profound.
God is a worker.
In the beginning God created...
It’s easy to hurry past that word.
Created.
“Yeah, yeah, I know God created.”
But allow your mind to unpack that for a moment.
God conceived of; he imagined; he sketched out the blueprints of; he dreamt of; he set about; he applied himself; he laid foundations upon which he built; he brought the bottomless pit of his creative flair and genius to bear on all he did; he designed a myriad of shapes and sizes and species; he moulded and shaped; he invented intricate inter-connected systems and habitats; he showed incredible wisdom and oversight; and he brought his plans into being...he made, he formed...he worked.
You get the idea.
And I’m only scratching the surface.
God is a worker.
And we are made in His image.
But there’s more.
When God took on flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood....
...he did so in the person of His Son, Jesus....
...who, almost certainly was a carpenter.
Think about that for a moment –
Jesus was a worker.
Before he was an itinerant preacher, he was a worker.
In fact, he spent more of his life working as a carpenter than he spent as a preacher.
Close your eyes and imagine him...
...choosing a piece of wood to work with,
measuring a length of timber,
cutting along a line,
smoothing,
nailing.
Imagine him making a table, a chair, repairing a fence.
Writer, Thomas Nelson says: “The One whose hands created the trees was now using that wood to craft all sorts of things. The One who masterfully fashioned humans from the dust of the earth was making chairs for people to sit on in their homes.”
I love that thought.
We work because we are made in the image of One who works.
When we work, we reflect the image of the One in whom we are made.
Our work done well, brings glory to the One who made us to work.
Again, we already know this, because we talk about it often.
How our work is part of our worship.
Let me leave you with one last thought, from Dorothy Day. Writing in the first half of the last century she said,
“The Church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly—but what use is all that if in the very centre of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever came out of the carpenter's shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could anyone believe that they were made by the same hand that made Heaven and earth.”
Love you family.
Go and make good tables.