The Family Business

I’d like you to pay attention to something today.

Everything.

Bill Donahue, in his book, In the Company of Jesus, tells the following experience he had in a seventh-grade science class:

“One day our teacher calmly entered the room, walked past a dozing student and placed a glass beaker on a desk in the center of the room. The beaker was half filled with water. For a moment he stared at the beaker. Then he gave us a set of simple instructions.

‘Take out your journals,’ he said. ‘Turn to a blank page and then, in groups of four, record seventy-five observations of this.’ He pointed to the beaker.

We looked at each other for a moment. Teachers relish these moments, when students aren’t sure whether they’re being toyed with or whether this will be on the final exam. The silence was broken when a brazen student — try to guess his name — offered the first observation. ‘Okay, here’s one. I see a glass of water sitting on the table.’ A ripple of chuckles moved across the room. Chalk one up for the students!

‘Nice try, Mr. Donahue, but you have misunderstood the assignment. That was an interpretation, not an observation.’

As the laughter subsided, he continued, ‘Observations would sound something like this: “There  is a small cylindrical object sitting on a flat surface. The object appears to contain a clear liquid.” And so on.’

Now gripped by the gravity of the task before us, we began to calculate how much mental effort would be required to generate seventy-give of these statements. A collective sigh filled the room.

‘You may begin,’ the teacher said. ‘We’ll stop in forty minutes.’ He sat down at his desk as my group began struggling to fill our first page.

Mercifully, after what seemed like forty days, the bell rang and we closed our journals. ‘Well, I hope you got off to a good start,’ the teacher said. A good start? ‘Tomorrow when you come in, you can continue the work by making another seventy-five observations.’

This Friend we’ve been talking about? Well, that beaker of clear liquid is his. He made it. Both directly and indirectly, he made it. One hundred and fifty observations about one beaker of clear liquid. Interesting. Now expand that to every object, every action, every person you will be encountering today. Pay attention to all that’s within your range of vision and hearing and touching and possibly smelling and tasting right now, at this very moment. That’s all his too. Your Friend knows about all of that, and is in all of that. He’s involved in every bit of it. All of it is held together in him. “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

So your Friend has a few things going on other than his friendship with you. Hopefully, instead of that making you feel less special, it will make you feel even more special. In spite of all that’s going on in Jesus’ life, your friendship with him is extremely important to him. Even with all that’s going on, he wants you to be his 24/7 personal disciple and friend.

This morning I wrote in a birthday card for my father. When I grew up, my father had a lot more going on in his life than relating to me. He had a wife and five other kids. He was on consistory. He had a business to run that took up about 12 hours of each weekday and often part of Saturdays. As I got older, he would often take me to work. I hardly ever just watched him work. He ran a furniture auction and had to hustle to fill the building every week. (Consignments were an extremely small part of his business.) First, he had me carrying things, then loading things, then cleaning and polishing things, then packing the truck and fixing things. It was a family business, which meant that basically everyone in the family was involved with the auction at some time or other.

When I went to California this past February, I was only able to spend a couple of days with my folks. Guess what my dad and I did? We went to a storage auction. Even though he’s semi-retired, that’s what we did for about 6 to 7 hours of my short stay there. We bought stuff, and loaded and packed stuff. I talked to my brother who works for another auction company now. I also talked with another buyer from still another auction company who is very involved with his church and wanted to talk to me about church stuff while he was buying other stuff. Oh, and part of that time was spent getting one of the rear duals on the truck fixed that I happened to “notice” was flat just before we started for home.

My dad still has a whole lot more going on in his life than relating to me. And for the few hours we had together, it was good to share it. Most of it was very ordinary. It felt like I’d left all this only about year ago instead of 30 years ago.

By the way, my dad also came to stuff I did when he could. In spite of how dog-tired he often felt, I don’t think he ever missed one Little League game during the four years I played, or Pony League Game, or Connie Mack game.

So I encourage you to pay attention today. Don’t think you have to judge or evaluate or even interpret all that’s going on around you. In fact, I would encourage you not to do those things. Just be aware of how awesome your Dad and Brother are, and allow yourself to be in awe; and help out when you can, especially when the Spirit points out something you’re to do. There are some things Jesus wants to teach you today. So pay attention. He’s also going to ask you to give a hand with a few things. And be grateful that this amazing and awesome Creator and Sustainer and Savior of all — is your Friend.

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