Utica Baptist Church, Utica, Mississippi

  The Fall 2001 edition of Proclaim! included a little story about a hand surgeon who specializes in reattaching fingers that have been partially or completely severed in accidents. When he enters the operating room, he knows he will be squinting into a microscope for six to eight hours, sorting out and stitching together the snarl of nerves, tendons, and blood vessels finer than human hairs. A single mistake, and the patient may permanently lose moment or sensation.

Once the surgeon received an emergency call at three in the morning and was really not looking forward to undertaking such a tedious procedure at that time of the morning. To add incentive and help him focus, he decided to dedicate that surgery to his father who had recently died. For the next several hours, he imagined his father standing beside him, encouraging him with a hand on his shoulder.

His little technique worked so well that he began dedicating his surgeries to other people he knew, even waking them up to tell them so!

Then one day he realized that as a Christian, he should offer his life to God in the same way. All the little routine things of his day--answering phone calls, dealing with staff, seeing patients, scheduling surgeries--remained the same, but somehow they were different. The task of living a life for God now began to overshadow his days, and he soon began to treat others with more respect and care.

I wonder if we might do the same? We may not be hand surgeons, but we each have tasks and duties for which we are responsible. There are others who depend on us. Wouldn't it be marvelous if we could "dedicate" each day to the Lord, imagining Him standing beside us with a hand on our shoulders, watching us, guiding us, counseling us, walking with us?

If we would do that, I believe we would find that even the simplest, most routine things in our lives would become colored with a holy sense of His presence with us.

--Rocky Henriques, www.uticabc.com

A couple became interested in helping a Finnish girl immigrate to the U.S. They decided she might be a good prospect for a job in their home. They questioned her qualifications: Could she cook? Do housework? Could she take care of young children? No: her mother did the cooking, sister did the housework, and grandmother took care of the younger children. So, finally, they asked, "What would you do if you worked for us?" "Well," said the girl, "I could milk reindeer."

In our world, there are too many of us who want to milk reindeer, when there are no reindeer which need milking. Instead, there's a young girl who needs a big sister or a mother-figure. There's a family who could use an extra bag of groceries on their doorstep tonight. There's a young man who has great potential for God's Kingdom, but right now just needs someone to believe in him.

There's a class of rowdy youngsters who needs someone to step in and invest themselves into those little hearts. There's an older person who needs a phone call from someone--anyone--just to talk.

I believe our attitude should be that of a feisty 91-year-old who lived alone in a small Missouri town and was recovering from recent hip replacement surgery. The woman's granddaughter was worried about whether she was eating right, so they called Meals on Wheels to see if they would call her and offer their services.

The following day a volunteer called the grandmother and explained the Meals on Wheels program and how it relies on volunteers to help the elderly and ill. Would she be interested in it?

"Well, sure," she replied. "If you can't find anyone else to help you, I guess I can!"

What a great attitude! What a servant heart! How she shames me sometimes!

You see, there are not too many reindeer waiting to be milked around here. Find the real jobs--and do them.

–Rocky Henriques