One of my projects this winter is to purge this one area of our basement. Come on, we all have that space. You know, that space you dump things where you don’t know where to put them and just don’t want to deal with them yet. Well our so-designated space was pretty filled up. When I purge, I like to go through everything and I mean everything! Some of the stuff stored here is from grammar school all the way through college and into my professional job. Low and behold I came across something I wrote in college. As I sat and re-read it I was reminded that this was the first time Jesus spoke through my spirit to write something about Him. I can remember that evening. It had been a long day on campus at Purdue University working in a computer lab. As I was walking back to the dorm Jesus spoke to me through the circumstances I was currently in, studying engineering, to put our relationship into perspective. I share it now because it is through experiences like that when I hear Him most clearly, as if it were a one-on-one conversation of Him putting something into words I can better understand. In order to honor the original experience, I have not changed any of the words or grammar from the original.

“An engineer, an inventor, sits at his drafting table. Once again he pulls out paper and a pencil and begins on the designs for his new machine. He is constantly building machines. Each one is different in its own way. One is more user friendly while this one is very intent on its production, and that one has a different shape and color. But each one was designed and built by the engineer, the inventor. He had some help though, from his son. The engineer had once thought he could do it all on his own. But he found that the machines were not responding to him like he had planned. So he let his son show the machines what the engineer, the inventor, had in mind for them for his son could communicate with the machines on their own level.

You see, these machines start out as a beautiful idea in the inventor’s mind. Then they begin small. A central processing unit, free of the engineer’s control, runs the machine. It takes in the data, analyzes it, and tells the rest of itself what to do in response to what it took in. The engine also starts out small, but like the central processing unit and the rest of the machine, it grows.

This engineer has invented machines that can run totally on their own. But being such a wise man, the engineer, the inventor, knows that none of these machines will last long without his help. He decides to try and see if these machines can figure this out for themselves. He sends his son to be his go-between and to help them understand that they need the engineer.

Unfortunately, without fail, each machine’s central processing unit decides to try and make it on its own. First it has to slow down because it is unsure of itself. Then its environment and specific job tasks start to take their toll. The machine begins to think that its engine cannot continue and that the engineer, the inventor, does not care to see it survive. It believes it has failed. Now the son steps in, points to the engineer, the inventor, and tells the machine that his father cares very much and would hate to see his beautiful creation quit. But the machine does not see how it can go on. Its parts are corroded by the misuse and abuse it has experienced. The son tells the machine that it only has to ask the inventor for help. It does ask and immediately the engineer replaces the worn out, dead parts with brand new, unbreakable ones. He then explains to the machine that it has always had an engine that would never stop because it has unfathomable power that the inventor has given it. The machine had only to ask the father how to use it.

Now the machine understands and its central processing unit constantly talks to the son and the engineer to find out the plan they have for it. One by one these machines turn to assist the others and soon the machines that have not been fixed see that they only have to turn to the engineer, the inventor that created them, for rebuilding.

The inventor and his son are very pleased to see that the independent machines comprehend the fact that the inventor was alway needed. Now their engines will never stop because from the engineer they have found an eternal source of fuel.

The engineer, the inventor, the creator is God, his son – Jesus Christ, and the machine is YOU!

Always look to the engineer!”