construction Jones
Henry Blackaby, in his powerful study Experiencing God, taught me the life-changing difference between joining God where he already works and asking him to work according to my plans. “We don’t choose what we will do for God,” Blackaby said. “He invites us to join Him where He wants to involve us.”
Riley has shown me what it really looks like to live that way.
I watch her in the morning, still groggy with sleep and pills working medicine through blood and tissue, as she realizes, one ear cocked toward the ceiling above her head, that her father is at work. The mallet thuds and she unfolds her legs from their comfortable curl and, coffee in hand, drifts up the stairs.
“Do you need any help, Dad Jones?”
She always asks in the exact moment when I want to position myself as far away from serving as possible, and far from reluctance, I hear enthusiasm in her voice. It’s as though the moment she heard him she thought, Oh goodie! Dad’s working. Maybe I can participate. In fact, I even hear beneath her words a please please, because Riley would rather join her father in his work than do any other thing, even things that bring her comfort and joy.
Kevin, being a good father, almost always answers yes, inviting and gathering her in, adding teaching to the work. If we think on it for any time at all, we children realize that not only does God not need us to complete His work, He includes us as a gift of grace, because He loves us. While we can help effectively, even that help He empowers, since our skills and understanding fall far, far short of His own.
“Oh, I enjoy her,” Kevin says, smiling gently when I mention the comparison. “She’s good company, and she does help.”
Together, they remind me that God’s enjoyment of His children is even greater than His delight in what we do. He wants to be with me and gave everything so nothing could keep us apart.
I listen to the two of them all day while performing sustaining, ordinary tasks; right now, folding warm and nubby towels, placing them in humble stacks, smiling because scripture puts towels in the hands of God’s people.
Jesus, washing his disciples’ feet and drying them on a towel he wore at His waist, said, “I have given you an example. You should do just as I have done to you (John 13:15).”
Suddenly I realize with some joy that this work, this opportunity to serve my family by folding these towels, came to me as an invitation from God to follow His example and join Him in the work of love, something He planned in advance for me to do. Ephesians reminds me that I am God’s masterpiece, created anew in Christ to do the good things He planned for me long ago (Ephesians 2:10).
Kevin’s voice rumbles from around the corner, where he kneels, knee pads like athletic gear covering his knees, fitting new floor planks together. Riley’s voice sounds like a chime in response, always in the affirmative. All day she has come down the stairs with empty boxes and returned with full ones; she has filled his water cup; she has searched for tools he mislaid for as long as it took her to understand what he asked. On my way in to fold these towels, I stopped, watching the two of them. She stood behind him, just far enough away to give him room, but not so far that she could get distracted. Waiting, she folded her empty hands neatly together, ready.
Riley wears a toolbelt slung lazily over her hips, a favorite gift my parents gave her for Christmas—a simple suede pocket, royal purple, a smaller version of what Kevin wears to do his work. She wants to be as like her dad as she can be; she pays attention not just to what he does but how, even to the way he looks while he works, and then, she imitates him. Because she’s listening, Kevin speaks aloud the things he might otherwise keep to himself, narrating the work as it goes, assessing progress, contemplating challenges. He says, Oh look at that, it fits perfectly, and she agrees. He says, Well, that one doesn’t seem to want to snap in, and she agrees. Because he’s her dad and he knows what he’s doing, whatever he thinks must be right. She never questions his assessments, definitions, instructions, or plan, except to understand what He wants and how she might help. He says, Can you, and she leans forward a little, suddenly even more attentive, and then immediately says, yep, her voice clipped with the urgency of obedience. I notice: there is no request she finds beneath her, nor any amount of waiting and watching him that she deems too long. She could stand there all day, just agreeing with His words, just being with him, just admiring his work. “It looks sooo good, Dad,” she says sometimes, and I remember a psalm. I will ponder all of your work (Psalm 77:12).
On the whole, I struggle with waiting when I don’t know what to do or what will be. Riley teaches me the joy of resting in the presence of my Father while He is at work, of trusting in His power and ability, of pondering the marvelousness of His work in the seasons when that’s all He requires of me. I’m His child. I get to watch and learn, ready with my empty hands and my eager assent to join Him where He wants to involve me. “Construction Jones,” I hear Kevin call her now, choosing with affection a nickname his daughter will understand as love, as joy, as belonging. She giggles and it sounds like music, like the pure delight of a child fully loved and completely changed by her relationship with her dad.
