My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9

Let it be understood: I do not have a single handyman bone in my body. Also, I am not any kind of a tool guy. Ditto the truck thing. Even more so heavy equipment. I have never wanted to drive a locomotive, I do not yearn to sit in the cab of a giant Caterpillar earth-moving machine, if you need somebody to swing a wrecking ball or help you to demolish something I am not your guy.

My grandsons – especially Geoffrey and Mr. T. – would be incredulous to know this. They are both all about trucks and trains and bigger trucks and more. Especially dirt movers and diggers. One of Geoffrey’s first discernible words was “excavator;” it may even have come before “Mommy”!

But then, Saturday afternoon, I went out onto the front porch and saw this gargantuan behemoth of a shop-vac. I think my immediate response was, “I gotta get me one of these!”

Here is the CliffsNotes version of the story. We moved in at the end of November and, immediately, noticed some issues with – how shall we put this politely – water flow. Gurgling. Slow drain. Water coming back up into the tub. Flushing challenges.

Eventually our handyman expert came out. He plunged. Then he snaked. Then he used some kind of an amplified hose situation that “always does the job.” Nada. Zilch. No can do. He got under the house and gained access to some unspeakable regions of the plumbing. No dice. Nothing doing.

After all that he walked around the front yard with a probe until he found the line to the street. Accessed a vent. Found more very unpleasant “water.” Determined that the issue was the other side of the sidewalk. Called the town.

A half hour later, even though it was a weekend (I kid you not, the Tarboro folk responded beautifully), this super-charged over-the-top shop-vac-on-steroids pulls up and fastens one end of its hose to the street end of our outflow.

Wow! I have used a suction cup to clear fluids before. I have even evacuated casual water out of bucket with a vacuum. This monster could probably suck, or blow, somebody out of the bathroom or down through the drains if they were – how to put this? – poised in the correct position.

So why, other than it’s fun to write about, am I sharing this story?

Bring in the Heavy Equipment

Well, and I don’t mean to be trite here, sometimes what we need in our lives is to stop piddling around with the minor adjustments and, you know, “bring in the heavy equipment.”

• My squirt gun – to God’s 5,000 PSI water cannon.
• My suction bulb – to God’s sewer clearing shop-vac on 10 wheels.
• My New Year’s resolution – to God’s life transforming encounter with love that will not let me go.
• My lip service to discipleship – to God’s “Beyond even what you could hope or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).

What Jesus continues to do for me is not an “attaboy,” a slap on the back, a new philosophy, an optimistic outlook, a nice way to network on Sunday mornings or some other minor adjustment; Jesus is completely transforming what is possible.

So how about showing up for worship today, quickly forgetting about my shop-vac analogy, and saying thank you for the fact that our God doesn’t mess around; everything is possible when we understand the implications of Grace, or what Jesus has done and continues to do.

“For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,” God points out, “so my ways are higher than your ways.”