I had the privilege over 10 years ago of working on an engineering project with some very bright people. The manager of the project had a PhD from MIT and 20 years of engineering research experience, with a whole list of patents. Another man was a consultant with a PhD from MIT who had worked for many years at a local laboratory on the space program. We were doing cutting edge things with a university to make little, tiny mechanical things that run on electricity. They were so small, they could fit on the head of a pin. Not many people in the world understood these things or could help with designing them from scratch.
So they got me involved to do the thing that I did best. Now, I didn’t go to a big school with a big name in engineering. It wasn’t MIT. I went to little Lafayette College, with 2,000 students and a small engineering program. I went to the little grad school at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. But I could look at something mechanical and then put all the math and science into understanding it, and then predict what it will do when you do different things to it. This was a big help for designing things, because as good as ideas can seem inspired, they have to pass the math and science test. The good ideas have to dance with the physical reality. To know beforehand whether ideas pass the test, well that is huge. You don’t have to go all the way down the path and then find out the hard way at the end.
And I had a reputation for being dead-eye.
So we worked together to design and build a first version of the tiny little thing that could fit on the head of a pin. The day came for the big test.
When it was done, the consultant came in, excited. “It looks like it’s working almost exactly the way we predicted. I’ve never seen the predictions come out so close on the first test.” Everyone was excited, because the test came out just like we expected. It meant that we did understand what we were doing. It gave the whole team confidence that we could make the technology work. All the doubts and uncertainty and fears collapsed.
Dead-eye.
How did I get to be dead-eye? Two things. First, God gave me a great gift: a love for math and engineering science. Second, I delved into it with all I had. In college, while all the other kids were out playing on the quad, I was working at it, 70 hours a week. I decided to go to grad school because I wanted to go deeper, because I wanted to be firmly rooted in it for my career as an engineer. Same thing, 70 hours a week. It’s what I loved, and I valued it.
I put my whole self into what I loved. That’s how I became dead-eye.
Jesus is always dead-eye. Whatever He says, happens. A storm comes up on the ocean? He says, “Be still,” and the sea is still. He says, “Come out!” to a dead man, and the man walks out of his tomb. He says, “This is my body,” and “This is my blood,” and bread and wine become His body and blood. He gives eight beatitudes, with eight predictions attached to them. Do you want to bet that they’re all happening?
When it comes to the Word of God, Jesus is dead-eye. What He says, happens.
So, how did He get to be dead-eye? Two things: He loved His Father. Second, He gave Himself entirely to Him. “Do you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Lk 2:49) While He could have been looking to go the pleasure route like most everyone else, He was hard at work preparing for His mission. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Building is what He loved, and He valued it.
Jesus put His whole self into Who He loved, and that’s how He became dead-eye. Because of this, God can send His Son into our lives to destroy all our doubts and uncertainties and fears.
What do you put your whole self into? What do you love? How are you a dead-eye? If you follow Jesus and put yourself entirely in God’s service, He can send you into people’s lives to destroy all their doubts and uncertainties and fears.
You can become His dead-eye.
ALM 