Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Aunt Betty's wedding ring had been in the family for three generations, and it's been passed down to my wife. There's probably no piece of jewelry that she treasures more than this one. But she couldn't wear it because Aunt Betty's ring size was a lot larger than my wife's little fingers. My wife identified a jeweler whose craftsmanship she trusted and she entrusted this heirloom to him to be downsized. To be honest, she was a little nervous leaving it with anyone, but she did commit it to this jeweler. When he called that the ring was ready, she could hardly wait to see what he had done with it. Well, the diamonds were intact, the ring looked the same, but it fit her perfectly. He didn't make it into a necklace or a pendant. He didn't change the setting of the stones. Of course not. He took what was entrusted to him and he made it better.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Business Re-creating."
A jeweler shouldn't try to re-create a piece of jewelry into something else when the one who trusted it to him just wanted him to enhance what it already was. We understand that about jewelry, but often we don't seem to understand that about the child God has entrusted to us! God gave them to us to enhance what He made them to be, and we keep trying to make them into something else - what we want them to be!
The problem is a lot of parents didn't get the child they wanted. You wanted an athlete and you got a scholar, you wanted a musician and you got a mechanic, you wanted a quiet one and you got a loud one, you wanted a loud one and you got a quiet one. The list just goes on and on. So maybe you didn't get the child you wanted, but you got the one God wanted!
You got what is described in our word for today from the Word of God in Ephesians 2:10. In fact, you could put the name of your child, or each of your children, right in this verse. It says, "We are God's workmanship" If you'd like, put the name of a child of yours right there at the beginning, __________ is "God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" –or for "___________ to do."
Your business is to step back and recognize the unique person God made when He made your son; when He made your daughter with all their personal strengths, with all their great qualities, and with all the limitations and weaknesses He gave them, too. Then your job is to hold up a mirror regularly for them and let them see the incredible person God made when He made them. Affirm who God made them to be, praise them, compliment them even when you need to correct him; do it in the context of affirming who he is.
A mom came to me recently, concerned about the offbeat sense of humor her eight-year-old son has. Actually, she asked me if I was like that at that age. I'm still not sure what that was all about, but he seems like an anomaly in a family that is otherwise fairly serious. But I encouraged her to fan the flame of his sense of humor. It's something God can use mightily to open doors and hearts her son's whole life. Our son used to frustrate us when he would come to us with a whole itinerary he had planned out meticulously for him and his friends, only asking us after everything was already set. We needed to correct that a little, but I'm glad we didn't put out the flame of a budding planner. God is using those same abilities mightily right now in a trailblazing ministry!
So remember, God didn't trust the treasure of that child to you to reshape him into what you wanted him or her to be. God gave you that child for you to develop and enhance the person He made them to be. Don't try to re-create the workmanship that God has created!