Christ manages best when He manages through sensitive followers. He will help you manage unemployment or economic reversals. He will enable you to manage career changes and marital struggles and family aches. He does not manage us as hand puppets or marionettes, but as intelligent souls who are receptive to Divine encouragment -- who listen for answers, as well as question Him in prayer. Whatever your dilemma, He will enable you to manage it, if you are open to His management of life and eternity, of sin and sacrifice.

The story is told of a prominent Judean businessman who dealt in carved and sculptured stone. He imported marble and had a shop to polish granite so that it gleamed like a windless lake. He was fortunate to receive a contract from Herod the Great, the Semitic king of Israel and puppet of the Romans, to furnish much of the decorative stone to adorn his lavish new castle being built seven miles southeast of Bethlehem. It was to be Herod's tomb as well as a fortress. In 37 B.C., when Herod was still quite young and his rule new, he began a building frenzy across Israel. The Herodion was only one of his many lavish projects, nearly all of them constructed of rich Judean stone.

Stone, of which there is a wealth in Israel, was selected carefully. The capitals and the columns were carved and polished near the quarries and then carted several miles over rutted roads to the mountaintop site of the castle. The businessman was delighted with his incredible success. He employed many stone masons, who chiseled elaborate symbols and geometric designs on the native stone, making spectacular columns, handsome capitals, and artful doorways and windows, balconies and balustrades. Always there was produced more capitals and columns than needed, so that if any were broken on the journey to the building site or were damaged in construction there would be immediate replacements.

One mason was a particularly gifted sculptor. He knew his work would adorn the palace of a king so he worked with exceptional grace. It took him long weeks to produce the capital of a column that would stand in the most prominent place in the castle. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of sculpture ever made in that region, and would support a major marble column imported from Egypt. The businessman marveled at the capital's precision. Other workmen were awed by its smooth lines and beautiful decorations. The sculptor himself was proud of his artistry. And so were the workmen who carefully put it aside to load in the next shipment from the quarry to the castle. Except that when it was time to take it to the Herodion, they loaded the wrong capital. Inadvertently they loaded the practice piece on which the sculptor had chiseled his initial designs, trying his patterns and testing his techniques. It too was beautiful, but rough, unfinished. The mason was dismayed to discover it was taken and the superior capital left behind. The businessman was too caught up in other projects to be concerned about that one capital, no matter how prominent a spot it was to have. Business was business and the mistake would never be noticed, he reasoned.