I saw a documentary a while back about the loss of certain industries in the USA over the last 50 years. One of the people they interviewed was an old man. He was standing in front of an abandoned factory (a steel mill, I believe) that was slowly crumbling away. The windows were gone, some of the walls had collapsed, and weeds were growing everywhere. This man grew up near the factory and both he and his father worked there until retirement. When he was a little boy, the noise of the factory woke him up one night and he complained to his father about it. His father told him "be glad you hear the noise coming from the factory, because that means people are able to work and provide for their families. It will be a sad day when you don't hear that noise anymore." When he finished the story, he looked at the silent abandoned factory behind him and began to cry.
I thought of this story today at work. I had a splitting headache early in the afternoon, so I turned off the lights in my office to rest my eyes and see if the headache would go away. Meanwhile, rivet guns are going off in the factory about 50 feet from my office. If you've never been around a rivet gun, they are loud, and the constant BRAPPP BRAPPP BRAPPP from the guns was only making my headache worse. I thought "I'll be glad when I can retire so I'll never have to hear those rivet guns again". That thought reminded me of the old man complaining about the noisy factory as a boy. Suddenly the rivet guns didn't seem so annoying, because I knew that noise meant people were working and I had a job. For the last 33 years that noisy factory put a roof over my family's head and food on the table. My kids never went to bed hungry or homeless. No doubt the sound of those rivet guns will be a fond memory for me when I'm an old man.
Sometimes we get caught up in the daily irritations of life and forget about the big picture or the greater good. Life is hard and we suffer at times, but then God never said it was supposed to be easy. Consider the example of the Lord who was made perfect through suffering for the greater good (i.e. our salvation): "But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering." (Hebrews 2:9-10 ESV) "In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek." (Hebrews 5:7-10 ESV)
