Completely Useless

At the moment, the oven in my house isn't working. There's power to it, the lights work, and the controls act like they're doing something.

Yet when you turn it on, it does----nothing. No heat. You can't cook in it. Sure, the lights come on, the timer works, and the "preheat timer" even counts down and tells you the oven should be ready. There's not enough heat from the lights to warm your hands.

Neither can I put milk in the oven to keep it cool. I can't make ice cream in it or coffee, it won't feed the cats or open the garage door. Why won't it do those things?

Not because it's broken, but because it's an oven! Ovens aren't for those other tasks.

So here's the deal: since the oven won't cook and it's not designed for any other purpose than the making of hot stuff, it's now completely useless.

It's not beyond hope of usefulness---I'm fairly certain I know what's wrong with it and that an appliance repair person can fix it. Once its fatal flaw has been corrected, it will serve a vital task for our family once again.

Until then, though, it's not made for anything else and can't do what it's made for doing. So, all I see is something blocking cabinet space.

The same could be said of me some days. There are certain things I was made for, things that I am capable of, the purposes God created me for accomplishing. Such things as proclaiming the truth of God's Word, loving my family, and teaching. I'm not made for other things, like singing, dancing, and athletic stuff.

Yet there are times that I allow other issues to break me and make me unable to do what I'm made for. At that point, I'm as useless as my oven.

What to do? Fix the problem. Sometimes, it's a self-fix. Usually, it's a fix that requires professional help. In my case, it requires self-discipline to be spending time in God's Word seeking only for myself. I'm a pastor and a seminary student, so I spend a lot of time in the Word seeking school knowledge or church knowledge, and miss what I need for me.

And then I start to grind to a halt. I see the things I can't do, that I wasn't made for, and get a little more irritated, a little more frustrated.

I need to come back, let the Word correct what's broken, and get back to work.

Doug