It was about 88 degrees today as I drove through town. I came up behind a large city dump truck filled with salt and sand. This was a perfect place to be in a blizzard in January but this is July. The light turned green and as the truck moved through the intersection it began to spread its contents. I am guessing the driver had no idea what was happening. For the next two miles he salted and sanded the highway. If he was delivering a load he was in for a big surprise when he arrived at his destination.
This is just like people who think they have something worthwhile to share and have long since lost it, if they ever had it. We see (hear) them dominate committee meetings and private conversations. Even worse we hear them pray in public meetings and they have nothing to say to God or us except a long string of worn out clichés. It isn’t that we all have to be constantly original but there is an ethos emitted indicating whether or not a person is passionately attuned to their words or intellectually fresh.
In his second letter to Timothy Paul wrote, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” The admonition is plain. Study. Constantly be filling one’s mind with new insights and deeper understanding so we need not be ashamed when we open our mouths. Unfortunately most people don’t have a clue when they have an empty load.
Pray that it is not us.
Written by Roger Bothwell on July 4, 2002
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