davidbowerkingwood

 In The Hands of a Professional the Job Looks Easy

Over the years I have noticed how easy a job looks when done by a professional; whether it’s driving a nail, painting a picture, or playing a musical instrument it seems to look so easy when done by one who really knows what they’re doing.

Having worked in the building business for so many years I can recall times when I watched an experienced carpenter driving a nail, one tap to set it and one more mighty blow and the nail is completely driven in to the wood. They made that rather mundane job look so easy one might think anyone could do that and oh how wrong they would be.

I’ve also had the privilege to watch a highly competent painter paint a demonstration landscape. He too made painting look so obvious and simple that one may have gotten the impression that anyone could do that too and again how very wrong they would have been.

I remember several years ago some friends invited us to go hear a small jazz ensemble one evening. The ensemble included a string bass played by a young man who was jaw-droppingly good. He made playing the string bass look like the easiest thing in the world to do as he effortlessly moved around the strings performing his wonders.

Having played the cello for many years I had on occasion picked up a friends string bass and tried to play it and I can tell you from experience it’s really, really hard to play for many reasons so I was duly impressed by the skill of this young musician.

On Being a Christian Professional

What then is the purpose of this commentary on making a job look easy; it is this, there is an application to the Christian life. The same principles apply to the Christian life that apply to the carpenter, the painter, and the musician.

To make sure my meaning is clear; by Christian professional I am applying this potential for Christian professionalism to any and all Christians; not just Christians for pay, such as church staff Christians, but also Christians like you and me who are “good for nothing.”

In this context a Christian professional can be any believer who has practiced and studied Christianity so thoroughly that they intuitively live out the principles in their lives as automatically as breathing. They make the job of living like a Christian look easy.

Just as the carpenter, the painter, and the musician made the job look ridiculously easy because they had spent thousands of hours developing and honing their skills; just as they had worked and sweated over the details and constantly repeated their efforts until they knew exactly what to do and how to do it; so this pattern is required of the Christian professional in order to develop their skills in living the Christian life.

Both their bodies and their minds had become so saturated with the demands of the job that their performance came with apparently little or no effort on their part; this is the formula for the successful, effortless, Christian life.

Is there some way those principles can be applied to Christian living? In Part 2 we will investigate the possibilities.