Sermon Central
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Those Nasty Redo's! (10.06.05--Beginning ...
Contributed by Mark Brunner on Oct 4, 2005 (message contributor)
Those Nasty Redo’s! (10.06.05--Beginning Again!--Genesis 16:7-10)
Time is one of the most precious commodities that God gives us daily. The time to do things is always limited. And, we need to balance the things we want to do with the things we need to do.
Therein is the tension. I start each day with a fragile plan, one that is put together loosely as I fall asleep the night before and gradually takes shape through morning routine, shower and breakfast. By the time I’ve gotten in the Corvair and am headed to the office, it is nearly complete. Unfortunately, one thing that never makes it into my morning planning, because it is not considered worthy to stand next to the “do’s,” are the “redo’s.”
This past morning I had planned on putting a simple weather strip on the bottom of my daughter’s bedroom door. This was a planned “to do” and should have been a five minute job. I tackled the job in the evening after getting home from work. One and a half hours later I was ripping the thing off again for the third time. I had redo bumping into redo and the “do’s” I had so carefully placed one after another were getting bumped and jostled. The just needed to be time for those unwanted but sometimes necessary “redo’s.”
Thomas A. Edison was working on a crazy contraption called a “light bulb” and it took a whole team of men 24 straight hours to put just one together . . . When Edison was finished with one light bulb, he gave it to a young boy helper, who nervously carried it up the stairs. Step by step he cautiously watched his hands, obviously frightened of dropping such a priceless piece of work. You’ve probably guessed what happened by now; the poor young fellow dropped the bulb at the top of the stairs. It took the entire team of men twenty-four more hours to make another bulb. Finally, tired and ready for a break, Edison was ready to have his bulb carried up the stairs. He gave it to the same young boy who dropped the first one. (James Newton, Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel and Charles Lindbergh, 1989, p.22)
Sometimes God’s plan calls for redoing things when ours calls for doing and moving on. No one likes having to start over, especially when other “to do’s” are jostled or displaced in the process. And when our mistakes impact on others, it makes it even more difficult. Yet, doing things over is part of God’s disciplinary plan for us. In His game plan there is no place for running away from our mistakes. Submitting to our problems, accepting God’s help and tackling the “redo’s” is the right thing. Putting some time away each day for this necessary discipline is the best policy by far.
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