Use The Right Knife

My friend got me a Serbian Almazan chef's knife as a gift a few months back. I am very picky and annoying about gifts, but this one was totally appreciated. 

It is a serious knife--very heavy, steel, sharp but rugged, and can pretty much do anything. I used it in the kitchen for heavy hacking and chopping. I have another knife, a Japanese Santoku, which is thin, nimble, and precise. I sharpen it on a special sharpener since the edge angle is unique to this particular knife. In addition to a couple of small paring knives, these are the only two knives I own. 

As a man, I appreciate good tools. As a kid, I remember having to help my dad chop wood with these old dull iron wedges which made miserable work of splitting rounds. Good tools are important, but also having the right tool for the job. You don't use a circular saw to trim branches, you use a chainsaw. Etc.

I commuted to work by bike the other day, it was around 40 degrees in the morning--chilly but not frigid. I'm trying to get all my rides in before snow hits and makes things harder. There is an expression: "There is no bad weather, just inadequate clothing." Again, I think this reasoning makes sense. I donned insulated socks and gloves, a balaclava, hat, windbreaker, and wool sweater. I was sweating near the end of my ride. People think I'm nuts for riding when its really cold. But it's really no big deal if you dress for it.

In many ways, grace is the heated knife for the stone cold butter of our lives. We struggle and fight to "be good" and achieve the things we want to see happen. But when God infuses grace into our lives (by way of the Sacraments and Sacramentals), its as if he's lubing the skids of our sled so that we can glide across the tundra, or allowing us to ride in the slipstream behind the semi. God's grace helps us more than we can do on our own. It is "taking the elevator" rather than the stairs, as the Little Flower was fond of saying. It is the "be who you are and be that well" of St. Francis de Sales. 

Our job is to be properly disposed to receive this grace so that we are not fighting against Him and what He wants to do in our lives. "Gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit" (Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it). He wants us to use the right knife for the job. This may be contemplation, or serving the poor, or praying the rosary as a spiritual weapon; it may be fighting against temptation to sin, soaking in the scriptures, or taking a stand for what is right. If we insist on being active when God wants us at his feet in adoration, then we are using the wrong knife. If we insist on taking a retreat when he is calling us to head up a battalion, we are using the wrong knife. 

Ask yourself: do I make my life harder than it needs to be? Do I do so by worrying about food, drink, or clothing, or running around anxious about many things like Martha? Do I take care of what God has given me, the tools I am called to sharpen and oil, to effectively do the job we are tasked with? Do I know how to use them safely and properly? Do I respect the authority of the Church to teach me?  

We have all that we need to be saints. God has bestowed such dignity on us as human beings that we are deemed to be co-creators with Him, to literally co-operate in ushering in life and being His hands and feet on earth. He gives us sacramentals, bread, weapons, companionship--literally, everything we need. We just need to learn to accept it and use it for His glory. When we cooperate with grace, nothing is deemed too hard or onerous or unsurmountable, because He is with us. He trains our hands for war, and our fingers for battle (Ps 144:1).