Growing up in South Carolina, a lot of my friends had boats that they used for water skiing on nearby lakes. A lot of those boats were powered by Evinrude motors – a very big name in boat motors then and now. But a name is just a name, and I never gave a thought as to where Evinrude motors came from…until this week.

John Ed Mathison, whom we met yesterday told this story on his blog, Wednesday, May 12. A fellow took his girlfriend on a picnic on a Wisconsin lake. After they got there, she expressed a desire for ice cream so he rowed across the lake, 5 miles each way, to buy some ice cream. While en route, he said to himself, there’s got to be a better way to move a rowboat! And so Ole Evinrude invented an outboard motor. Here’s part of the official history:

What’s the application? John Ed’s was that we should be looking for opportunities whenever we encounter obstacles. That’s a good one. Here’s another: there’s not much a guy won’t do to catch a girl!

There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a young woman. (Proverbs 30.18, 19, NIV)

But mainly, I think of the wonders of creative work. God has allowed humans to share in his ongoing creation from the beginning (e.g., Adam named the animals in Genesis 2). And today, people from Ole Evinrude and his descendants down to the guy who picks up your trash are serving people by their work. (I wrote about work in more detail in my third book: The Disciple’s Work.)

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (Genesis 2.15, NIV)