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So where are you headed? I'm a Journeyman on my way to Heaven. Actually it is already here - at hand.
i spent some time up on a scaffolding today finishing some exterior trim work. i hadn't planned on becoming a carpenter growing up or even after moving to Mississippi, but that is one of the trades that i have been blessed to learn. i tell clients that i drew buildings for 20+ years and learned how to detail them correctly and now i am blessed to be able to build and fix them with the knowledge gained over all those years designing and drawing. Sure is different when you are working "full scale". Vectors don't warp either and every component in the digital drawing is too scale - if drawn correctly. In the real world we have moisture, heat, sunlight, the nature of materials, and an array of items and influences that take the straight lines in the structure and bend them. This is where the tricks and the skills come in and if you spend some apprenticeship time under a master you will learn many. i know a few. A good painter always saves the job for a bad carpenter. :)
Now is the time of being a Journeyman for me. It is a strange place and an awkward one where we are pushed forward out of our comfort zone, but armed with the confidence of using what we have been taught and that we have been taught right from wrong. The Journeyman is not a Master but is given jobs that he will handle himself - jobs where the Master is not directly needed. So the Journeyman is armed with all the knowledge of the Master, what has been taught so far, and has a certain number of skills which he has gained confidence in using over the time of preparation. The Journeyman is in this awkward place because he has to learn to work on jobs by himself and is entrusted with this, he moves forward but the Master has already been sent ahead of him. All eyes seem to be on him, and all around him want to see what this is all about. "Let's see what he has been taught." is what they say. They want the opportunity to see his work and judge. If it is nothing worth noting, maybe lukewarm, they shrug their shoulders and go back to their realities. Nothing has changed.
The Journeyman is poised and confident, though, and he has been taught patience and persistance. Granted there were numerous chunks of skin and flesh that he lost in the learning process and there was of course the crushing of the ego when he first started, but these were just parts of the learning process and something that he would have never experienced if he never tried and didn't have the courage to step out in the first place. So now is a time when his hands and work represent His hands and His Works. The Journeyman knows that there are other apprectices coming up and he lends a hand and shares his knowledge and support while settling in on his job and his opportunity to learn and share and raise up the Master who taught him everything. The Master chose the Journeyman because He saw something in him, a potential and purpose, a stuborn persistant perfectionist and a man that has a passion and love inside. He saw something beyond the exterior, He saw and sees within.
The Master chose us first. So where are you headed?
Love and Blessings in the name of Yeshua,
~ antbrother
