The Carpenter Who Didn't Know What He Was Building

In 1987, a retired carpenter named Harold Meeks in Tupelo, Mississippi, started showing up at his church every Tuesday morning with his tool belt and a thermos of black coffee. The pastor hadn't asked him to come. Nobody had. Harold just noticed the fellowship hall's baseboards were splitting, so he replaced them. Then he re-hung a crooked door. Then he built new shelving for the food pantry.

For three years, Harold simply showed up and worked. He rarely spoke about his faith — he just sanded and measured and hammered. What Harold didn't know was that a teenager named Derek, court-ordered to do community service at the church, had been watching him every Tuesday. Derek had never seen a man show up somewhere he wasn't required to be, do careful work nobody would applaud, and leave without asking for anything.

Twelve years later, Derek — now Pastor Derek Williams — told Harold's widow at his funeral that those quiet Tuesdays were the first time he understood that faith was something a person could live inside of, not just talk about.

Paul prayed that Philemon's sharing of faith would become effective as he recognized every good thing already at work in him for Christ's sake. Harold never gave a testimony or led a Bible study. But the good things Christ had planted in him — faithfulness, dignity, quiet generosity — became fully active the moment someone else finally saw them. That is faith's sharing made effective.