It’s More F.U.N.: Jesus – Making do

I was once repairing a house appliance. I don’t really recall what it was. It was some simple item that had some loose parts. I didn’t have a screwdriver then, and I decided to use what I then had: a butter knife.

A foreigner friend happened to drop by and watched me tightening the screws. He smiled at me and said, “That is really what amuses and amazes me about you Filipinos! You make do with what you have to fix things.”

“I guess we don’t really have too many options,” I checked the appliance I just fixed.

“In our country, we have gotten too specialized that we have grown accustomed to only using a specific tool for a particular repair. We have lost the ability to ‘make do’ with simple substitute implements.”

“That’s because your country is more developed and some things are more specialized. But in lesser developed ones, we are still at the stage of making do and surviving with basic tools to serve our daily needs.”

* * *

When we look at our Lord’s life, we are immediately attracted to His portentous deeds like His miracles curing many sick people (the blind, the deaf, the dumb, paralytics and numerous lepers). The sick and the dying were perhaps, the one’s that filled our Lord’s heart with compassion and moved Him to heal them.

We, however, often only appreciate the extraordinary in these cures performed by Jesus. We fail to notice that in order to carry out many of them, He resorted to the simplest words, gestures, and ingredients. In this manner, our Lord wanted to teach us that His miracles are not totally detached from human experience. Rather, they are possible when God makes do with the simplest earthly elements to carry out divine things.

The Gospels abound with many examples! In curing a blind man, our Lord mixed His saliva with dust and made some sort of muddy paste. This was applied to the blind man’s eyes and he regained his sight. Jesus touched the dead youth of Naim and the daughter of Jairo and restored them back to life. He commanded paralytics to rise and Lazarus to come forth from the grave. He transformed water into wine without any direct action or words but on the faith of the servants.

In other words, Jesus did not resort to an unknown chemical or magical formula to carry out His miracles. The results of these actions were truly extraordinary and reinforced His disciples’ faith. Furthermore, Jesus demonstrated that they were possible by making do with ordinary human words, actions and substances. This is further emphasized when He gave His apostles powers to heal the sick and to cast out demons.

This idea of God making do with human realities affords us two consoling lessons: first, as St. Josemaría puts it, our Lord (literally like a playful Father to His children) hides His graces behind the most ordinary realities of life. He called this the quid divinium or the ‘divine something’ hidden in common realities.

If we are, so to speak, “game” or “engaged,” then we will find many graceful treasures during the day imbedded in our work, family, rest and including life’s numerous trials (illness, financial difficulties, misunderstandings, etc.) We allow God to mix these ingredients with our life, and He makes do with them to work our conversion and perfection.

The second idea refers to our being God’s instruments to carry out the work of co-redemption. This is both a humbling and also inspiring truth: God makes do with us despite the fact that we are inept and often, unfaithful instruments to carry out His will here on earth.

Our own experience humbles us when we admit our laziness, sensuality, envy and pride. Somehow, we are baffled with how our Lord continues to count on us, despite our stubbornness and ungratefulness to His grace.

We only have to see how many men and women from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and even in the present history of the Church, how God continues with this ‘divine logic’ of making do with the most unexpected instruments (Moses, Jonah, Peter, Thomas, you and me included).

Such being the manner with which God proceeds to shower His blessings upon men urges us to place ourselves trustingly in His hands, as ‘clay in the potter’s hands’. Thus, we will have no right to claim any merit on our part, and it will be truly seen with greater clarity than ever that such marvels have been possible only through God, who wonderfully makes do with man.