It was there. I just didn’t see it.

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My father was a master fabricator. He could make anything with steel. He would wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, grab some paper and design his idea and then go back to sleep. He was always thinking out of the box.

Early in his career, he installed commercial kitchen equipment. Needless to say, he worked with stainless steel sheet metal. He thought of everything to make with the stainless. In fact, he once designed a stainless steel snow shovel. Great idea, as it would last forever. Bad idea, it was too heavy, even without snow to pick up.

His claim to fame was the stainless steel grills he designed. Rumor is that he only made three of them. One he made for a family friend. My sister had one but gave it to someone who got rid of it. I have the third one. In fact, it is the largest one. My dad was proud of it. He cooked rotisserie chicken, roast beef and sausage on it. He once cooked five chickens at the same time on it. The fuel was always charcoal. He taught me to use newspaper and not charcoal lighter to fire up the coals.

As he got older, there was talk about converting it from a charcoal fired heat source to propane. I noticed some hesitancy as he was afraid the smell of propane rather than the taste of the charcoal would get into the food. It never occurred. Instead, the grill was passed to me.

For years, I had the joy of firing up the charcoal and grilling chicken, sausage, hot dogs and hamburgers on that grill.

Although I never converted it into propane, I eventually purchased a propane grill. In fact, I purchased three grills. Each one rusted out and was eventually replaced. I always had trouble with the igniters. None of them ever worked. In fact, the current one doesn’t work. I’d open the propane tank, turn the knob on the first burner, hit the igniter, and nothing happened. After a few times, I used a lighter to start the grill.

More recently, I was cooking some sausage on the propane grill. Wanting to cook them slow, I lowered the heat and found myself staring at the front of the grill. I noticed that the lighter mark was on the middle burner, but not the other four burners. I realized that there was no lighter on those other four burners.

I shut off the grill, changed the igniter battery, turned on the middle knob, pressed the igniter button and it lit. Then I turned on the second and fourth burner knob and they lit. I opened the first and fifth burner and they lit.

I said to my wife, “Did you know that there was only one lighter on the middle burner?” to which she said, “Yes.”

I didn’t need to use the lighter sticks. The grill wasn’t broken. It wasn’t defective. All the equipment worked. I just didn’t read the instructions.

This is going to be a stretch so don’t write me a letter. Maybe God is like my grill. All the pieces are there. All the equipment is there. The equipment works. For five years (or more), I just didn’t pause and read how to properly use it.

Here is where I am going. Consider the Bible as God’s owner’s manual for us. There are perspectives in life and decisions we need to make that are outlined in this book. Take a moment and read it.

I’ll be back in two weeks. Until then, live well my friend.