Faith Beyond the Thunder: Why Picking Up the Hammer Is Sacred Work

“From dust you came, and to dust you will return.”

For years I heard that mostly as a sentence about endings.

Lately, I hear something else in it.

Dust is ordinary.

Soil. Stone. Wood. Water. Bread. Hands.

Maybe that is why so much of life is ordinary too.

We spend a lot of time looking for the dramatic thing. The great calling. The thunder. The moment when everything suddenly becomes clear.

Most days do not arrive that way.

Most days bring a loose hinge, an empty coffee cup, a dog that needs feeding, a patch of ground that needs tending, a neighbor who could use help, and something broken that probably will not fix itself.

There is holiness in that kind of work.

Not because the work is grand.

Because it is ours.

We were formed from dust, and perhaps that is why we understand things made from the earth. Wood under the hand. Dirt beneath the boot. Stone that needs moving. Food that needs preparing. A porch board that needs replacing before somebody falls through it.

Faith does not always look like waiting for the sea to part.

Sometimes it looks like picking up the hammer.

Sometimes it looks like planting the seed.

Sometimes it looks like washing the dishes.

Sometimes it looks like maintaining the porch.

There will be larger things in life.

There will also be Tuesday.

And Tuesday still needs tending.

So I will work with what is in front of me.

Feed what depends on me.

Repair what I can.

Help where I am able.

Then leave tomorrow where it belongs.

I came from dust.

One day I will return to it.

Until then, there is work to do.

“By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”

Genesis 3:19, NASB