It had been a full day.  Most of them are, but when the grandchildren visit, there’s always more conversation (and louder), more activity, and more eating.

I like the eating part.  And all the others.

Dinner was over.  One child was stretched out in my easy chair, so I sat on the loveseat next to his mother—my daughter.

She was working the ubiquitous jigsaw puzzle.  Nearly always, one is lying in a thousand pieces (more or less) on the coffee table.

She worked on the puzzle; I watched the football game with the kid in the chair, and we talked.  We talk all the time.  About the weather.  About their pets.  About the house on the mountainside.  About the grandkids.

This evening the conversation turned to more serious matters.  Not life-and-death ones.  Just deeper than the weather—or puppies.

Funny.  We talked about talking to people—listening to people.

Did you know if you listen to people, they’ll talk to you?

I mean, talk—communicate.  All it takes is a heart to hear what folks are saying and to show empathy.

I’m still not great at that.

But, then I don’t do puzzles either, do I?  Somehow, I think they’re related—puzzles and people skills.  And puzzles aren’t my thing.

Still, once in a while, as I sit there on the loveseat, a piece seems to leap out at me from the jumble on the table.  And, picking it up, I can place it effortlessly into a spot just waiting for that particular piece.

Only once in a while.

But, people. . .

I’ve told the story before, but it bears repeating here.  I repeat it in my mind often.  Partly because the memory is of my father, but mostly because I need to remember.

I had owned the music store for only a year or two when the phone on the wall rang one afternoon.  My dad was calling from his home in the Central Valley in California.  He just wanted to talk.  So we talked.

And then, as we were about to say goodbye and hang up, he asked if he could pray with me.  Well, he was a preacher.  That was what preachers did.

This prayer would change my life.

“. . .and Lord I ask that you’ll bless Paul in his ministry there in the music store. . .”

Did I say the prayer would change my life?  What I meant is one phrase of the prayer would change my life.

I remember nothing else he prayed about before we said our goodbyes.

I was in shock.

Ministry?  What was he thinking?  This wasn’t my ministry!  It was my vocation, my business; how I earned a living.

The light of the epiphany was blinding.

“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.“
(Colossians 3:23, NKJV)

It wasn’t long after that phone call that the stool appeared.  Right in front of the counter where customers checked out.

It wasn’t just a stool.

It was an invitation.

I couldn’t begin to tell you how many people accepted that invitation over the thirty-some years we operated the music store.  Some just wanted to talk about their musical instrument.  But, many just wanted to talk about life.  About relationships.  About death and loss.

Yes.  All of life is ministry.  Work—leisure.  Daytime—nighttime.  At home—miles down the highway.  All of it.  Everywhere.  All of it ministry for God.

Unless we choose not to follow the words of our Teacher and Savior.

Love God with everything you’ve got.  Love people with everything you’ve got.

Even when both seem like puzzle pieces that won’t go into place.

We don’t do them one at a time, either.  Even if you’ve been led to believe that by folks who claim to love God but refuse to love people.

If our love for God doesn’t lead naturally to love for the folks around us and across the world, we’re missing the boat altogether.

The puzzle is beginning, just beginning, to make sense; the pieces to go into place.  I still have a few pieces (well, more than a few) that I can’t yet make sense of.

I’ll keep trying.

I think I’ll sit down on that loveseat for a few more minutes this morning, too.  I may be able to fit a piece or two into the big picture.

I wonder if the Lovely Lady will notice.

But then, I’m not doing it for her, am I?

 

“Loving God, loving each other,
And the story never ends.”
(from Loving God, Loving Each Other, by Alejandro Martinez, David Thomas, Ivan Martin)

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8, ESV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2023. All Rights Reserved.