a roll of orange tape

I find myself sitting in a hardhat, safety glasses, and FRCs which either stands for Fire Resistant Clothing or Fatally Roasty Clothing. They consist of thicky, sticky jeans and heavy long-sleeved shirts. Either way I'm happy. I learned something today... actually I learned a lot of things today, but I learned something about life today.

You know those nuggets of wisdom that Jesus throws at you in the weirdest of ways? Like when Jesus makes you get really really emotional over a little roll of orange flagging tape sitting on a hydraulic pipe-lifter-thingy? Yeah, that happened today.

Let's paint the scene. I'm sitting in a truck watching everyone get ready for the task at hand. My job today is to observe and nothing else. So I observed. I watched some guys chat about something probably really exciting, some guys testing pressure stuff, some guys getting ready to lift heavy stuff, and some guys counting pipe. The latter I watched with particular interest. They were counting so they could put orange tape on specific pipes for a very important reason, I'm sure of it. When finished, though, one of them placed the roll of orange flagging tape on top of the pipe-lifter-thingy. Hint: it didn't belong there. As the day's work began, this pipe lifter kept, you guessed it, lifting pipe. The orange roll of tape kept rolling around all inside and around it, pipe falling on top of it, but it never quite leaving the trough.

I got really concerned.

I asked my coworker about it; I asked the supervisor about it. Neither cared. I got even more concerned. "IT DOESN'T BELONG THERE," I wanted to shout. "IT DOESN'T MATTER," their shrugs replied.

Then Wisdom came and showed me something. She spoke to me about how that's the way we as a generation like to treat people. When we first meet people, we notice the little things. We have an affinity for noticing the things that they do wrong, the words or actions that are out of place. We notice their annoying habits and the imperfections. The thing is, though, that sometimes it stops there. Most often, we don't take the time to understand the person. Their history, the way they work, what they need. We don't try and see their purpose, what they have to offer. Most often we just see the little orange roll of tape in their life  that is most definitely in the wrong place.

But it doesn't matter. You see, the reason this was a big deal to me today is that I only looked at this small little piece of everything going on. Sure, the tape didn't belong there. But that never once stopped the hydraulic pipe-lifter-thingy from lifting pipe, or the pressure testers from testing pressure, or the spinny thing from spinning, or me from observing. It changed nothing. It didn't stop the crew from accomplishing its purpose. Everyone else knew that, but it took me a minute to understand.

If I had chosen to see the greater purpose of everyone and everything that was there today, I would have realized very quickly that the orange tape being in the wrong place didn't really matter. Similarly, if I choose to see people for their greater purpose, what they are meant to do in this crazy little life, I would quickly realize that their small little bad habits or annoying tendencies actually don't really matter. They don't disqualify the person from fulfilling their purpose, and they sure don't disqualify me from helping them fulfill their purpose.

Fun times in 104 degree heat and 81% humidity sitting in an air-conditioned truck watching people work way harder than me, and learning a whole lot more than a textbook could ever teach me.

Stay golden.