day 653: The Right Tools

"If you keep yourself pure, you will be a utensil God can use for His purpose."

I was speaking with a senior member of an executive team and he was complaining about all of the things that he couldn't get done with the current amount of resources he had been allocated. As I listened to him describe the challenges he was having I began to see some solutions that could be easily implemented. As I asked about these he said, "that would be great, but I don't have those systems and software." I asked why not, since some of these are programs that are available nearly, if not totally, for free. After a fair amount of hemming and hawing I got to the crux of the problem and found that neither he, nor anyone on his team, had explored or sought out any new tools for quite a long time. They had become satisfied with what they had, even though they were deficient, and had gotten used to using antiquated and not the best systems and tools in the marketplace. It was no wonder he and the team were always scrambling to keep up. What I saw was someone trying to compete in the Indianapolis 500 with a car that had technology from ten years ago. This is not unusual and it does take someone in an organization to keep us up to date and then to push us to change and adapt. What is also true is that we if are not using the up to date, and the right tools, that we can not work to our best.

A wonderful thing about our God is that He always wants to work to the best! But, the same can be said in that He also needs the right tools to get His work done effectively. We are God's tools and utensils who can bring to life His purpose to those around us. But, we also have to be right in order for the best work to get done. Paul writes to Timothy about this and says, "If you keep yourself pure, you will be a utensil God can use for His purpose." Paul didn't say that we had to be on the cutting edge, or sophisticated, or fancy. All he said was that we needed to be pure and we would become the right utensils, the right tools, that God could use. Ask yourself today as you go about your work, and God's work of bring glory to Him, are you pure? Have you done all that you can do today to be the utensil that He wants and needs to get the work done? Another of God's wonderful gifts to us is that He gives us everything we need to continuously purify ourselves to be ready for the work He asks us to do. From there, the choice is up to us.

Reference: 2 Timothy 2:21 (New Living Testament)