A Gifted Knob Twiddler // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 3

We’re all different, aren’t we? Each of us with different strengths and weaknesses. The problem is though, that we can spend so much of our time comparing ourselves with the next guy that we lose perspective on our own gifts and abilities.

One of the things we tend to do a lot is to compare ourselves with other people. We live in an age of superstar syndrome. It’s sweeping the globe and frankly, it’s more insidious than bird flu. And that’s a dangerous thing. We look at the people around us and we see how clever they are, how talented they are. So and so is so good at that, I wish I was that good. So and so seems so confident and poised, I wish I was like that. You know what I’m talking about.

When we’re in that sort of a mood, and that sort of a frame of mind, we kind of see their strengths but we ignore their weaknesses. Somehow we hold them up as paragons of virtue, and forget that they have failings. They make mistakes. I’d like to introduce you today to a good friend of mine, Max, who seems to have this part of his life pretty well sorted out.

Max is a knob twiddler extraordinaire. He is the producer of all the radio programs I am involved in. Every time I’m sitting here in the studio, behind the mike, Max is sitting on the other side of the soundproof glass panels, doing what he does. You hear the intro music to the program, well, that’s because Max put it there. You hear the ending music of the program, well, he put that there too.

You think, man, that Berni could talk under water, he never stumbles. I’ll let you in on a secret, that’s because Max takes out all my stumbles. You will probably never see or hear Max but he makes me sound good. Listening to radio, we never think about production quality, but we sure would if it wasn’t there. Well, that’s Max’s job. Put it simply, no Max, no Berni!

Every now a then I get in behind the mike to voice something. And you know something, he doesn’t like doing it, but he does have an ear. He knows what it sounds like. I can be sitting in the studio and he’ll come on in my headphones and say, come on, Berni, you can do much better than that, try that again.

Max is, well, he’s fifty something, he’s a lanky Australian, he has chooks in his back yard and he farms bees. So every now and then I get some eggs and some honey. He’s got a grey ponytail, he’s sort of an arty-farty, trendy sort of a guy, a gifted musician, a worship leader and there are any number of things that Max could be doing with his life.

He could be doing more commercial work, which would certainly bring in more dollars than the work that we do together. He could do more up front muso worship type stuff and he’d get a lot more recognition. He could do more work with the ministry that he’s involved in, LL, which is involved in healing. And he would get much more one on one relationship and recognition and maybe satisfaction. Yet he chooses to twiddle knobs for me on this program. In fact, he loves it. I’m the only one who ever notices he’s hidden. He unrecognised, he unsung, yet he still does it. Max, why do you do it?

“Gee, Berni, I guess because it’s the sort of thing the Lord asks me to do. I was working in the commercial area, over twenty years ago now, working in theatre – working in live theatre, getting lots of kudos, working with lots of very big name people. And I just felt as though God was saying to me, I want you out of all of that and I want you to build a little studio under your house and I want you to do work for Me.

Now my ticket out of that situation was a regular job with a fairly large client, doing educational work. They were employing me six months of the year, so in a way it was pretty easy for me to give up a full time job and go freelance, but they dwindled. Work kept coming from different quarters and what was twenty years ago, work on to cassettes, now I work on to CDROM, and all those sorts of things.

 I still find myself sitting in the control room thinking, I actually enjoy doing this. There are some moments of it, like every job, ninety percent of it is just hard work, but there are moments, particularly with you, Berni, that I think, this is what God wants me to do.

There are other things in my life. I am involved, as you said, in music, and worship leading, with LL Ministries, with praying with people. We’re doing all sorts of things, but there’s something about this job that I really enjoy doing and I know it’s making a difference to thousands of people around the planet.”

Thanks for that Max. But it is great. You know Max and I spend a lot of time together in the studio and not only does he do the technical things brilliantly, but he has got such an ear, such an intuition for sound, and how we put things together.

Again, they’re not things that you would normally notice when you are listening to radio but they are really, really important. Now, on the days when I come in, and maybe I’m not feeling on top of my game, Max prays for me, Max encourages me. He’s just good at this thing. He is just cut out to do it.

Put him behind the mic, as I said, he doesn’t really like being there. Now I’ll tell you, I couldn’t really be in the control room most of the time, because twiddling those knobs would just drive me absolutely nuts. I know I couldn’t possibly do it. yYt he’s cut out for something. In the world’s eyes, Max is not a superstar; Max is not one of the people whose faces you will see on the television or at the movies. He’s got the face for it though, not like me, but you’re just not going to see that.

He’s good at what he does; he has a gift in this whole recording and production area that I could never dream to have. And together Max and I are a team, together we do something, and Max is happy to be a silent servant. Max is happy to do the thing that he’s good at, that he’s blessed to do, that he is gifted to do and he gets fulfillment from that. Even though he’s not a superstar in the world’s eyes.

I just wonder whether there isn’t a lesson in that for us. God uses Max, one of the little people in the world’s eyes, to touch hundreds and thousands to people around the world every day with His love. Just let that sink in for a minute.

God uses Max, uses the gifts and the motivations that Max has to do what he does so well, to touch lives all round the world. Max didn’t have to give his time over to do this; Max didn’t have to become involved in recording all these programs, and producing them and all that stuff.

But the bottom line is, God can do so much with people who don’t want the glory. Max is good at something, not just the techo kind of things, but with his ear and his encouragement, and his prayer, is a gift that he chooses to use for God’s glory. He has a gift that he lays down at God’s feet and God uses him. It’s a partnership between God and Max. It’s a partnership that brings deep, deep satisfaction.

You! You aren‘t good at what Max is good at, probably. You aren’t called to do what Max is called to do. But you are good at something, you are very good at something, and it’s something that probably, you really, really enjoy doing. Now give that one thing to God, give that to God for Him to use. That doesn’t mean run away from your job and do something totally different, maybe it does, but probably it doesn’t. God uses who we are, where He’s planted us, to touch other people with His love.

When we offer up the gifts and abilities and resources that God has put in our hands, that God has put in our hearts, that God has put in our DNA, when we offer that up to God, and say God, You use it, I don’t want the glory, You get the glory, God does amazing things.

When you give your abilities to God, you watch how God shows up.

When you give your ability to God, you see how He uses little people to achieve BIG things – that’s God!

There’s nothing as fulfilling, there’s nothing as exciting, there’s nothing as wonderful, as letting God use our gifts.

Go on, I dare you!