Doing Things Well

One day my dad sent me to a farmer to buy oranges. We lived between two towns in Brazil. The farmer lived a few miles away. I was an eight-year-old boy. I picked for our family two big bags of oranges directly from the trees. When I was finished, I tied them together. Then I asked someone to help me by swinging them over the horse.

On the way home I rode through the pasture. I happily touched the two bundles with the tips of my toes. Halfway home, the bundles loosened from each other and suddenly dropped to the ground. And a second misfortune followed unexpectedly.

Before I had a chance to bind the two bags together, a big cow surprised me. I tried to scare her away, but she ignored me. As she sniffed at the oranges, I thought: Nothing will happen, because the oranges are inside the bags. I was mistaken.

The cow picked up one bag with her teeth and threw it on the ground with a sharp jerk. Then she did the same with the other one. The bags burst and the oranges rolled all over. While this little boy sat helpless and crying, the cow ate as many oranges as she liked.

After the cow had walked away, I thought: who is to blame for the disaster? The horse? No! The cow? No! The man who helped with the bags? No! I came to the conclusion that I could only blame myself, because, from the beginning, I did not tie the bags together well.

Some passers-by took pity on me and helped me, and I rode home with the remaining oranges. But I learned an important lesson: “See what thou doest” (1 Kings 20:22). Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well.

“Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”—Angelique Arnauld.

Here’s another story on the same theme: While my family was living in the Brazilian countryside, I had only a cat for my amusement. It was a ginger cat, like the one I had in Verbalis, Lithuania. It reminded me of when I was a little boy in Europe. She also helped to comfort me after the death of my younger brother and sister. Every day at sunrise, my cat was at the door, meowing to wake me up. She would wait for me to open the door and give her a hug. One day I opened the door with troubled feelings. I did not hear the customary meowing.

There was nothing but an ominous silence. I kept searching and calling around the house, the stable, the granary, and everywhere. Then I heard a faint meowing in the distance. I followed the sound until I came to a well that my father was drilling by hand. How fortunate it was for my cat that my father had not reached the water level yet! In that well is where I found my cat.

I immediately called my dad. He came with a bucket tied to a rope and lowered the bucket into the well. Then my dad tried to cajole the cat into jumping into the bucket. But the cat did not know what she was supposed to do. Finally, my dad sent me into the well. Carefully, he lowered me down in the bucket. I’m glad he did it with so much care! While I was still on my way down in the bucket, preparing to grab the cat, she jumped into my arms. She purred with great contentment. The memory of that event taught me a lesson. Over the years, it has given me a special appreciation of John 3:16. God so loved the world, that He sent His Son down here. I thank God that He did not send us only a bucket or a rope. Instead He sent us His only begotten Son to rescue us. He did the best job possible. Let us climb into His everlasting arms!