"Dusting the Wine Bottles" by Pastor Noah

I don’t drink…….ever.

So this morning I’m up early and I’m walking through a grocery store. Now this particular grocery store happens to be, in my opinion, one of the nicest grocery stores in our city. You know those stores—the ones where everything is crisp and looks good. The place that actually has a library of magazines in it on nicely stained dark wood shelves. The store that has more movies than blockbuster, not for rent because that would entice a mindset and appearance of “reused” items that get worn and beat up, but these ones are all for sale at top dollar. The kind of store that you (or should I say “I”) don’t mind walking around in for a bit just looking. Now for me, that’s HUGE because you can ask my wife—normally going to the grocery store is like telling me that I have to have a colonoscopy done—not fun.

It’s early enough in the morning where it isn’t busy yet. The workers are stocking the shelves and making all of the items look uniform, tempting you to buy them (which I did go up to the organic juice section and ruin the ladies nice uniformed line as I pulled multiple “healthy drinks” off of the shelf with a bit of unease because I thought she may get offended). After I get my juice I decide to take a little walk through the store. (See, I told ya, you don’t mind spending a little time in a place like that…but I was also waiting for the bookstore/coffeehouse to open up down the way, so I had some time to kill.) As I’m walking, I go through the bakery then the deli, and I’m walking towards the middle of the store and I look to my left where the alcohol/wine section is. Now, I don’t drink…ever, but when you’re in a place like this you just observe everything. At least I do. As I look to the left down the wine aisle, I notice a gentleman, I’d say mid 50’s, fairly tall, with a little bit of a stocky build, on his knees with a feather duster…..dusting the wine bottles on the bottom shelf.

I like to think I’m one that is pretty open to the way God chooses to communicate to me—I try to stay “sensitive” at all times to Him, though I’m sure I fail more times than I succeed—and I hear inside me “Dusting the wine bottles, huh?” Now I’m in this place in my life and “career” (If you want to call it that. I’d choose to call it ‘the best thing I could imagine for my life.’ That is, being a Pastor over a phenomenal group of young people.) I’m in this place of wanting more—a lot more. And I’ve kind of embarked on this spiritual/natural journey of “betterment”—of wanting to be better and be greater at things. This was one of those instances—one of those times where a “nugget” of wisdom straight from heaven hit my spirit. “Dusting the wine bottles…huh?”

You see, I’d have to say this gentleman that was dusting these bottles wasn’t a “professional wine bottle duster.” I think he was just a regular guy doing his job in an extraordinary measure. This gentleman, who is not young, is on his knees on the hard tile floor of a grocery store with a feather duster, dusting wine bottles. And it hit me—that’s life and ministry. This guy is dusting this product on the bottom shelf of a fairly large store. This store will most likely have thousands of people walk through it today, many of whom will probably never walk down the wine aisle. But this man knew something—upkeep and appearance is everything. Maybe not to all the people that step foot in that door, but to those who appreciate the appearance of the store and the feel it gives off, and to those who frequent this place to purchase their wine. I think it does something for this man as well. It gives him something in his job that a lot of people don’t have—pride. He’ll stand up and the end of his dusting and look at this giant row of wine bottles, gleaming and polished, and probably smile. Will he buy all these bottles and take them home? I sure hope not! He may not even drink, but what he does do is look at what he has been given to do, and does it with excellence. It looks good.

Now the funny thing is that I’ll never buy a bottle of wine….ever, but I can appreciate the work this gentleman put into his area. And I have to think…what about me? Am I getting on my hands and knees with a feather duster in my call and in my life and making sure that I’m taking proper care of it? Am I going above and beyond and out of my way (or directly in my way) to make sure that at the end of the day, when I lay back and reflect on my life that day, that I smile with pride? Or even more importantly, when I reflect on my life in the closing moments of my existence here on this earth, will I smile and say…”looks good”?

I also ask myself, “What do our lives look like to the world? What does the ministry that God has entrusted me with look like to the outside (and the inside)? When people pass by it do they smile and appreciate the work that has been put into it? Do they know I worked hard to make it great?”

I just started reading a book called ‘Good to Great.’ It’s a business book, but I think I’ll get a lot out of it. In one part of the book, the author, Jim Collins, makes this statement, “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.” The gentleman at the grocery store didn’t stand back and smile in pride due to the fact that he worked in a ‘great’ grocery store, and consequentially, it made the wine section great. He chose to get down and take a duster to each bottle, and spend the time inspecting and making sure it looked good so that he was happy with it.

So my question is, “What do your wine bottles look like?” I’ve been to the crummy stores where the floors are never mopped, it looks gloomy, and everything is outdated and not cared for. I don’t like shopping there. I don’t like to even step foot into the store—I won’t give those places a second thought. So with that, what do people see in my life and in our ministry? Greatness? Or dirty floors and a place that hasn’t been well taken care of?

What about you…how are your knees feeling?