“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” --Leonardo da Vinci
I am a do-it-myself kind of girl. I was raised that way; my parents divorced when I was five and so I watched and helped my mother do household repairs, chores, and home improvements. My father is also very much a do-er: he loved woodworking, has done some home construction, and likes to figure out how things work. From both of my parents, I have learned to take on unfamiliar tasks and learn as I go.
So far this month (and it’s only the 19th as I write this), I’ve installed wire shelving in our laundry area, set up the tv with cable, Wii, Blu-ray player, and VCR, made a homemade version of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream, activated and reprogrammed a new smart phone (twice), created vinyl decals of a favorite quote for Ben’s mirror and some flourishes for my office door, and changed the design of my blog. What I should be doing right now, apart from writing this article for you, is designing new business cards for Ben. I know that sounds simple enough, but we’ve decided to try a new style and print them ourselves, and I, of course, said, “No problem.”
And it’s not going to be a problem, at least when I’ve finished. Right this minute, I’m a little frustrated with it, and I wish that I could magically download just the right thing from the internet and have it work out perfectly. I’ve already tried that, so I guess I’ll just have to keep working on it, and learn some new tricks I can apply to other projects in the future.
That strikes me as a metaphor for life, really. When challenges come up, we can choose not to do anything, or we can do something, whatever that something turns out to be. Prayer is something. Research is something. And ultimately, acting out of our best understanding of what we have gained by prayer and study is something. I often want God to just reach down and fix something for me, but I learn so much more from doing it myself—and I suspect that’s how God likes it.
So what are you doing?
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