Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded you: - Exodus 31:6

Today's Scripture Reading (October 18, 2021): Exodus 31

Do you know what the secret of life is? I know, it is a big question. Maybe one of my favorite answers to the question is found in the 1991 comedy "City Slickers." The comedy centers around the adventure of a group of middle-aged men who have joined a cattle drive in an attempt to deal with their various mid-life crises. The main protagonist of the story is a thirty-nine-year-old man named Mitch Robbins, who is going through an ugly divorce back in his city life. Robbins has come on the cattle drive to try to escape all that is going wrong at home. And in the first half of the movie, the repository for all wisdom is found in an old cowboy named Curly, played by actor Jack Palance.

In the movie, Curly asks the question, and Robbins finds himself in the place of trying to answer it. Do you know what the secret of life is? Robbins admits that he doesn't, and in response to his admission Curly holds up his index finger; "One thing. Just one thing.  You stick to that, and everything else don't mean s**t."

"That's great, but what's the one thing," Robbins asks, holding up his own index finger. Curly's answer is one that we all need to hear. "That's what you gotta figure out." That is the challenge that sits in front of all of us. But finding that one thing, at least according to Curly, will unlock the secret of the meaning of life.

God speaks to Moses and tells him that he has given the ability to make everything God has commanded to all of the skilled workers. They will be able to make everything that God has commanded because of that skill. It is their one thing. In our contemporary world, we have developed a lie. The lie says that we can do and be anything that we want. But that isn't entirely true. Oh, there is something that we can do better than most, but the challenge of life has always been to try and find that one thing.

As part of that lie, we have convinced ourselves that we can become better people if we work hard at the things with which we struggle. If we are weak at math, then we put hours into trying to become better mathematicians. But the problem with that logic is that regardless of the hours that we put into numbers and how they relate to the world, we will never be better than the average person in mathematics. But if we can find that one thing and put our efforts into that, we will learn to excel at the thing for which we are gifted. But more importantly, we will be happier because we will have discovered our purpose.

Maybe unbelievably, Curly was right. And just as God had placed great skill into the lives of Oholiab, son of Ahisamak, and the workers that surrounded him, God has placed great skill into our lives. And our challenge is to find that one thing, the one place where the God of Creation has supernaturally touched our lives, and make the most of that area of our lives.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Exodus 32