Resurrection (or “Leo, Beck, Buck, and The Man”)
Well
my dear ones,
I
think I’ll start this story at the end,
and
then work backwards,
which
will hopefully make some sense
when
we get back to the beginning.
A
few days ago, I was walking across the parking
lot
of our local home improvement center
when
I saw a young man running back and forth
helping
people load and secure their purchases.
Thing
is, their twine roll had a broken cutter,
so
each time he needed to cut some cord
to
secure some lumber, he had to get another
employee
to cut it for him.
The
young man, Beck, as he later told me,
disappeared
somewhere in the store,
yet
on my way out I saw him and called him over.
I
told him I liked his style,
as
I could see that he went out of his way
to
help people, even more than his job required.
I
said that I knew he couldn’t accept tips,
but
God had put it on me to give him a gift.
Then
I handed him the Buck knife I was wearing,
and
told him, “This was a gift to me, and now
it’s
a gift to you; use it to help others.”
Fortunately,
I had a warranty card in my wallet
so
I was able to give him a copy of the
Forever
Warranty...
(which
I had previously blogged about here:
...to
go along with his new-to-him hardware.
Beck
was touched, and wished me a blessed day.
As
I walked away, I thought about how Jesus
had
a great point: it really is more blessed
to
give than to receive (and it’s fun, too!).
And
that got me to thinking about
the
Resurrection, which called to mind
another
type of resurrection,
that
of the saddest looking piece
I’ve
ever come across.
I
bought this thing on eBay,
thinking
it didn’t look too bad;
but
in real life,
I
could see that the internet pic
didn’t
come close to reflecting
just
how awful this thing was:
That’s
pretty much the sorriest knife
I
ever bought in my life.
What
I thought was just a broken tip
turned
out to be a knife
with
lots of vertical play,
even
more side-to-side play,
a
non-locking lock,
and
scales (side panels) that pretty much
looked
like really course sand paper.
In
short, it was a real piece of junk.
I
put in a call to Customer Service at
Buck
Knives, and talked to Chad;
I
told him my tale of woe,
and
asked if this thing could be repaired,
since,
in its current state, it was useless.
The
one thing I asked was that,
rather
than replace it,
I
would prefer to see this thing restored
using
as much original parts as possible.
A
month after shipping it out,
this
is what I got back:
Amazingly,
these are all the original parts!
The
bolsters (ends) shine like mirrors,
the
scales are gorgeous,
and
the re-pointed blade is sharp as a razor.
*shrugs*
Well,
for a company that looks to God
(which
is rare in this day and age),
and
prints John 3:16
on
the back of their warranty,
I
guess I shouldn’t be too surprised
that
they didn’t just repair my knife,
they
resurrected it! =D
They
made something perfect
out
of something beyond flawed.
They
took the broken,
and
made it into the beautiful.
That
really resonates with me,
because
it reminds me that,
no
matter what we’ve done wrong,
God
can do an extreme make-over on us,
can
restore us,
no
matter how bad off we think we are.
Fortunately,
this knife arrived just in time
for
the coming-of-age ceremony
that
my friend was having for his son, Leo.
Hence,
the Resurrection knife
(as
I like to call it)
got
passed on to Leo
in
order to help remind him that
as
he grows into manhood,
no
matter what line of work he chooses,
and
even if he winds up a company
that
doesn’t set the bar as high as Buck Knives,
there
is no reason why he, personally,
cannot
choose to set a high biblical standard
like
Mr. Chuck Buck,
and
stand up for God in his work life
as
much as in his personal life.
For
the one who does that,
God
has many blessings in store.
As
‘The Man’ said,
"I
have come that they may have life,
and
that they may have it more abundantly."
--- Jesus
As
for me, just to have the Resurrection knife
pass
through my hands was a blessing.
It
was a reminder that the Resurrection
is
the Centerpoint of human history,
the
time when the Author of the universe
set
aside the law of death,
and
brought forth life,
showed
us a precursor of how things might be,
by
showering us with hope.
No
matter what has happened to us,
or
what we may have suffered through,
we
are never more than
one
touch of the Master’s hand away
from
living the abundant life
of
which Jesus spoke.
May
God bless you with it!
Have
a great week. =)
grace, peace, and love to you,
dave
posted by thedavemyster at 3:57 PM
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