Christ Our Handyman

I was working on a window on which another person had already done a lot of work, scraping and sanding it. But too much wood had been scraped and sanded away and some of the window’s detail was gone and the wood couldn’t be replaced.

I began to feel disappointed and thought I needed to say something to the immigrant person we hired to do the work. But my words probably would have come out wrong. And as I began to formulate something in broken Spanish, the Lord reminded me that this was the first set of windows the helper has ever worked on, and that I hadn’t trained him very well on how to do the job correctly. I was also reminded that I had made many mistakes when I had started doing the same kind of work.

After swallowing that pill, then it dawned on me that I could fix the missing wood with epoxy. When I realized this, fond memories came that the Lord loves to fix our mistakes and sins. His love never fails and He never gets discouraged with us, as long as we keep coming to Him. (Isaiah42:1-4). His heart is not at rest unless we are with Him; even if we are full of sin, He is happy if at least we keep coming and are safely under His care and guidance. Then I happily looked forward to remaking the windows to their former condition.

Jesus loves to have us come to Him, just as we are, with all our weaknesses and faults. He aims to fix us up, to untangle our lives, and to set us free (under His direction.) There is no sin too big for Him to forgive, no mess too complicated for Him to clean up. He has the solution all figured out way before we even realize the problem exists. Waiting for us in the shadows is our best Friend ever and His secret formula, tailored just for our needs. Work is no big deal for Him, energy is His middle name. Wisdom and experience are His forté. And a just mercy is His special technique. All this because He has His Father who loves Him, the Son with whom the infinitely holy and perfect One is very well-pleased.

“Jesus loves to have us come to Him just as we are, sinful, helpless, dependent. We may come with all our weakness, our folly, our sinfulness, and fall at His feet in penitence. It is His glory to encircle us in the arms of His love and to bind up our wounds, to cleanse us from all impurity.” Steps to Christ, p. 52.

“God takes men as they are, with the human elements in their character, and trains them for His service, if they will be disciplined and learn of Him. They are not chosen because they are perfect, but notwithstanding their imperfections, that through the knowledge and practice of the truth, through the grace of Christ, they may become transformed into His image.” Desire of Ages, p. 294. (This quotation is a little hard hitting. But everyone who has already been hit hard by life and who has accepted that their trouble in life has come from no one else’s faults and failures but their own, is humbled by it all and can appreciate God’s humility and they see His deep love through all that He has allowed to come to them.)

“He would have them learn to confide in Him. We need not be content with merely formal prayers; we may come to Jesus as to a friend, and in the most simple-hearted, definite manner tell Him all our worries, perplexities, and trials, and He will carry our burdens for us. When our minds and our lives get tangled, we may take them to One who knows just how to untangle them. But after we have asked God to do this work for us, let us rest it with Him.” Review and Herald, October 21, 1884.

“Let God untangle the snarled-up threads for you. He is wise enough to manage the complications of our lives. He has skill and tact. We cannot always see His plans; we must wait patiently their unfolding and not mar and destroy them. He will reveal them to us in His own good time.” 5th Testimony, p. 348.

“Through all our trials we have a never-failing Helper. He does not leave us alone to struggle with temptation, to battle with evil, and be finally crushed with burdens and sorrow. Though now He is hidden from mortal sight, the ear of faith can hear His voice saying, Fear not; I am with you. ‘I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore.’ Revelation 1:18. I have endured your sorrows, experienced your struggles, encountered your temptations. I know your tears; I also have wept. The griefs that lie too deep to be breathed into any human ear, I know. Think not that you are desolate and forsaken. Though your pain touch no responsive chord in any heart on earth, look unto Me, and live. ‘The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.’ Isaiah 54:10.” Desire of Ages, p. 483.

“Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us, of which we know nothing. Those who accept the one principle of making the service and honor of God supreme will find perplexities vanish, and a plain path before their feet.” Desire of Ages, p. 330.

So the Lord loves to take us, and that means all of our sinfulness too. In fact, He won’t take us if He can’t have our sinfulness as well. He requires the whole package when He calls to us. That presents some real exercise of trust on our part that He will treat us and our condition carefully. His taking us and all that we are also gives us a lot of hope in that our sinfulness won’t turn Him away from us. He knows what He’s getting before we come to Him. Since He already knows our condition when He calls us, we can rest assured that even our deepest secrets and blackest sins won’t surprise Him when we confess them to Him. We have His promise that a bruised reed shall He not break and a smoking flax shall He not quench. (Isaiah 42:3).

“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He knows just how to fix us up, to make us holy, to make us happy.

“Is any thing too hard for the Lord?” Genesis 18:14. If you know the life and death of the first king of Israel, you see a selfish and lonely man who never learned to have confidence in the Lord to solve his problems. Eventually King Saul’s faults overcame him and his problems mounted and surrounded him, until he ended his own life. Let’s learn the sad lesson of his experience recorded in sacred history and vow not to repeat it.

The Lord God shakes not only the earth but also heaven with a few words of the popular song, “Handyman.”

If your broken heart should need repair, then I am the Man to see.
I whisper sweet things, you tell all your friends, they’ll come runnin’ to Me.
Here is the main thing that I want to say,
I’m busy 24 hours a day,
I fix broken hearts,
I know that I truly can.
─James Taylor.

With all due respect, Mr. Taylor, please step aside. You’re no match for the undying love and work of the everlasting Father under whose wings we have come to trust.