Scuffy and Me

“I was meant for bigger things!” Scuffy glared at us indignantly from his bathtub.

My two children ground an elbow apiece into my lap as they leaned over the book for a better view of the frustrated tugboat knocking his prow against the tub. While my children talked about his paint and facial expression, I recognized myself in Scuffy. I, too, was frustrated and chafing, bumping against life’s margins.

We were freshly settled in Accra, Ghana, and finding our way as hosts and Field Secretary for our mission. Our job was comprised of simple tasks almost anyone could do. An occasional comment from a colleague or guest suggested that we were doing satisfactory work, but I wasn’t finding fulfillment in it. Compared to the rich years we spent living in a village, this position felt insignificant. Although John was busy in town, my calendar had large, empty blotches, leaving me restless. Like Scuffy the Tugboat, I felt ready for bigger things.

At the apex of my inward chafing, we hosted Emanuel, our mission’s chairman who asked about our work. It was a basic report: Host guests. Run errands. Sit in traffic jams. Make airport runs. Process paperwork. Repeat.

When John stopped talking, Emanuel asked, “Do you feel fulfilled in what you are doing?”

John’s eyes were kind as he looked at me, knowing how I felt. He is the kind of guy who does what is needed without considering his own satisfaction or fulfillment. I’m not so selfless.

I took his look as my cue to speak. “I am having trouble feeling fulfilled.” Admitting it felt like defeat. “I had been warned that this station was lonely, but I didn’t know that lonely was synonymous with boring.”

Emanuel didn’t say a lot at the time, but his parting words the next morning would transform my years of service —and, perhaps, the rest of my life: “Remember that faithfulness is all God is asking of you.”

Life words, these! Like a swimmer bursts through the surface, gulping oxygen into depraved lungs, these words brought life back into my soul. Circumstances hadn’t changed, but I had been given purpose and freedom.

I closed the metal gates of our compound behind the departing men and recalled a phrase from a long ago sermon, “What is in your hand?”

When God asked Moses that question, Moses looked and saw a staff. God used that staff to perform miracles before Pharaoh and begin the deliverance of the Israelites.

On another occasion, a desperate widow went to a prophet to pour out the story of her unpayable debt. “What do you have in your house?” he asked. She had a small pitcher of oil. It wasn’t much, but it was all God needed to spare her sons and secure their future.

The question “What is in your hand?” together with the phrase, “Faithfulness is all God requires of you” created a bedrock of purpose for my future years of service. I determined to be faithful in any task God laid out for me, no matter how mundane.

In my hand that day was a basket of sheets and towels that needed to be washed. At hand, also, was a cleaning lady who needed a job and some instructions on what to do. It was a couple of children who were waiting for oversight in their schooling. I received each task as a God-given assignment. The widow didn’t grouse about the size of her oil cruse and neither would I, for faithfulness is all God asked of me.

That was the turning point for me in Accra. Fulfillment came. It wasn’t found in sheets or dusty floors or a filled calendar. It was found in the joy of knowing I pleased my Father with simple and faithful obedience.

Like Scuffy who learned that his bathtub was the right place for him, my position, too, fit me just right.