A construction crew is hard after it on a large hotel project. The plumbers are inside doing there thing and the brick layers are doing theirs on the outside. Let’s say I am a brick layer, I’m mixing my mortar and climbing the scaffolding, doing my thing. I then see some plumbers carrying in some pipe into the building. My dad used to do a little plumbing and I do a little at my own house, so I go to check it out. While watching them I notice that it all looks strange to me and the complexity of it all looks wrong. So I say to them that this and that could be done this way and that. I also suggest that they could use this tool and that tool as I do myself at home and have seen others do. The plumbers, with their extensive plans and orders laid out if front of them, stop working and gather around me. They ask “ are you a job boss?” “do you work for the foreman?” “have the plans and orders changed?” - I say, I was just noticing this and that could be done this and that way and…The Job foreman walks up right then. “what is going on here, why are you guys not working and what are you doing over here, don’t you work outside on the brick.” So I say, well i know a little about plumbing and wanted to help these guys out, it all looks strange to me, so I suggested this and that be done like such and such. They all look at each other and back at me, then they scan over the plans and discuss this and that and such and such. The foreman then dismisses the plumbers and asks them to get back to work according to the plans and orders they had originally discussed. He then turns to me and says “thank you for your wisdom and concern, we have duly noted all of it and they will now go back to work. Now let’s get you back out there laying brick, where you are suppose to be. If there are any other “suggestions” that you might have please inform your “boss” he will tell me and we can build a better project here, we might even switch you to that job if indeed we find you to be helpful in it, more so than your current position. But we do not need any more distraction and we really need both the plumbing and the bricks to be finished by such and such dates. So I return to my bricks and finish out the wall and the plumbers get back to work and finished their plumbing.
The whole time I was not laying brick and talking with the plumbers, nothing was getting done according to plan. They had to stop their job to engage with me, now they wanted to do right and were concerned about this so they did “respect” what I said, but when all was said and done I did not help them I hindered them. The job of this scope went well beyond my “home” knowledge. The fact that I had been laying bricks and not being involved from the beginning caused my judgment to be skewed anyway. Since the purpose for all of us to be there was to build a motel and brick laying and plumbing were both part of that goal, I was helping with neither by leaving the one to instruct the other. Now the “foreman” was polite and responded correctly to me and escorted me back to my place, everything was back to where it was suppose to be.
This is the main reason the “kingdom” is not being built on schedule and in order. The wall was not getting built (my job) and the plumbing was not being done (your job). We all need to be and do what the foreman has set out for us to do. We all have a place that Christ has appointed us and equipped us for. We must all do our part to complete the whole. When one leaves their job and “becomes the expert” at another’s, they do not lend themselves to the overall productivity of the project.
So now that this has been said, I must excuse myself and go back to work also
Oh and - I hope what I suggested in your plumbing operation was or will helpful - good day.
Thank you “foreman” for setting me straight. Whether you are the plumber or the brick layer we need to get back to work now.
(This was in prayerful response to “others” and “myself” “occasionally” bouncing off each other on my page and in my ministry, I got the above picture in my head and decided to share)
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