Last week, we had a blow out on the crane at work. It was an outer tire, so we were able to limp to our location and call for a quick change.
Since I have been in the oilfield for a little while now, I know that it is a little bit of a challenge to find us sometimes. My coworkers and I figured it would be an hour at least to get the tire changed. Our world was about to be rocked.
Thirty minutes after I placed the call for the change, a tire truck pulls up on location. Out waddles a rather large man who looked like he was in no position to be changing tires. We just knew that we added about 40 minutes on our wait.
He stared at the tire, grabbed two levers from the back of his truck, popped the busted tire off and had the new one on and aired up in 10 minutes. Just like that, he smiled and was gone. I stood amazed.
As I picked my jaw up from the dusty ground, I thought, “Man, that guy knows his stuff.”
While walking in United this weekend, I saw a face from my college days. It was the lunch lady, Viver Loving. It’s pretty rare for me to forget a face, but I knew I would never forget her because I saw her everyday of my first year in college.
She was old then, now it’s been a decade. But the years have been kind and she was shopping on her own with a cane in tow. The Spirit just nudged me to talk to her.
I introduced myself and told her thank you for cooking for me all those years ago. Her eyes lit up and her reply hit me hard. She said, “You’re very welcome, I just loved cooking for you kids. It was just great. You have made my day today.” We said our goodbyes and went on. She didn’t only know her craft, but she loved it.
You see, as people we tend to get dissatisfied with our surroundings fairly easily. We want to move on as soon as things get hard or we disagree with someone. What happened to growing where you were planted?
These people knew their craft and loved it. They grew where they were planted. Now I can’t say whether or not these two were following God’s instruction in their life, but they were going to be the best tire guy or the best lunch lady there ever was.
I was always taught that same thing growing up. Wildman would say, “If you’re chopping weeds, you be the best. If you’re cleaning toilets, you be the best.” Little did I know, the Wildman was pouring a little bit of the Word in me.
In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul is talking about a husband and wife’s relationship, but take out marriage and place work in there and you have an excellent reminder of how you should act.
“And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life. Don’t think I’m being harder on you than on the others. I give this same counsel in all the churches.”
1 Cor. 7:17
Grow where you have been planted! God is going to guide you through this season. Are you having trouble believing that where you are is really where you are supposed to be? In Ecclesiastes 3:1, it says “for everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.”
Grow where you have been planted!
Use this time to hone your craft. To get better at what you’re doing right now. God is using you in this season. He could be using this as a stretching time, a growing time, or it could be a place where you just need to seek and draw closer to Him.
I tell ya what, this preached to me big time. Hopefully, it’s gonna do the same for you. Thanks for reading. Y’all be safe out there.
Anything Worth Saying 