What If We Get It All Wrong?

I shake cumin into my palm and toss it into the crockpot. Looks like a teaspoon to me. Not much different with picture hanging, where I’ve never used a ruler or a level but have found eyeballing it to suffice. Close enough.

“Does it look good to a man riding by on a horse?” my friend always used to say. Sure ­­–good enough to pass inspection from a distance.

My son-in-law is doing the rough-in plumbing for his house, and I’m secretly worried about it. What if he mismeasures? They’ve chosen to do a monolithic slab, which means the trenches and pipes go in before the concrete is poured.

Are you understanding me? The pipes go in and then cement is poured over the top of them.

This is terrifying to me. If the man riding by on a horse needs to stop and use the room in my kids’ new house, he’s going to hope that plumbing was laid in perfectly.

The one thing I know about myself is that I was not made for detailed jobs like that. You might love my homemade Mexican carne guisada, but you don’t want me near your new house construction until it’s time to eyeball where to hang a picture over the toilet.

Which brings me to my worries about a very uncertain future.

A few months ago, I resigned from my teaching job after eight years (long story), without the security of another job waiting. Come June I’ll be unemployed. And my son and his wife moved here in February and are living with us until they can buy a house, but have you seen the real estate market lately? Waves of panic were rolling in last night, and I thought, What if we mess this all up? What if we dig our paths and then the concrete gets poured and we find out we were five inches off?

What if I quit my job and can’t find new work to pay the bills?

What if the kids moved here and then can’t find housing? Or what if they pay an exorbitant amount for a ridiculously small space and then the market plummets?

In the middle of my panic, the Lord said to me, “You’re not that good. You’re not that good at measuring.” This was of great comfort to me.

Oh yeah. For sure I know I’m not that good at the details, but Jesus is.

Jesus is precise.

Jesus prayed and broke a loaf of bread and some fish over thousands of people and the 12 disciples “picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.” (Matthew 14:20 NIV) That was some detailed, long-range planning. He is a meticulous measurer.

I’m not that good. Important decisions come along, but I can’t lay out pipe for my life so skillfully that when the concrete hardens everything is all perfectly where it should be. So, I’m leaning on the Lord, trusting that he’s going to help me and my kids get precisely where he wants us to be.

Thank God he’s the one doing the rough-in.