Don’t Get Your Wires Crossed

It was a beautiful summer morning, and we had enough work waiting on the farm to keep three men busy and make a fourth one pretend he hadn’t heard his phone ring.

But before we could get started, our main tractor needed a couple of quick repairs.

Now, if you’ve ever worked on equipment, you know “a couple of quick repairs” ranks right up there with “that fence ought to hold” and “I don’t think that bull will bother you.”

Those are statements made in faith, with very little supporting evidence.

The gentleman I worked for was a super hard working guy, and I figured we’d knock out those little repairs and still put in a full day. We were working our way around the tractor, greasing fittings and checking hydraulic fluid, when we noticed something leaking on the right side.

We couldn’t see it very well, but it looked like a small screw had worked loose.

Unfortunately, it was tucked into one of those places that makes you wonder whether the engineers assembled the tractor around the screw.

The man I worked for studied it a minute and said, “Here, I’ll reach back in there and see if I can tighten that up.”

So in went his arm and a screwdriver.

He twisted one way, leaned another, and bent himself into a position that would’ve qualified him for either a circus act or a visit to the chiropractor.

I stood there providing the kind of assistance most of us specialize in. “You getting it?”

That’s farm language for, “I’m glad that’s your arm in there instead of mine.”

After a good bit of wiggling and working, he finally said, “I think I got it.”

And he did.

Unfortunately, he was about to get something else, too.

His arm was tired from holding that awkward position, and as he pulled the screwdriver out, it crossed against an electrical connection on the starter.

There was a sudden electrical crackle, a flash, and a noise that sounded a little like redbone hound had gotten his tail caught in a screen door.

I looked over at him. He wasn’t moving.

He was standing there staring off into the garage like Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial.

Eyes open. Perfectly still.

If a pigeon had landed on his shoulder, it would’ve completed the picture.

What felt like several minutes was probably about ten seconds. Finally, he took a breath and said, “Shew.”

I waited.

A little later, he said it again.

“Shew.”

Apparently, that was the entire damage report.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I will be.”

Then he showed me his arm. That electrical short had blown out of his arm and left a mark he carried for years.

It had rung his bell so hard I figured somebody in the next county was answering the door.

Once I was satisfied he was going to be all right, I offered a little encouragement.

“You’re a heck of a fine man, but you ain’t much of a fuse breaker.”

That went over like bringing store-bought potato salad to the church picnic. (Y'all know who you are!)

I decided it was probably best to let that joke cool off until he was recharged.

Eventually, we got back to work. But I never forgot how quickly a little job turned into a painful lesson.

We had seen a leak, decided we knew what needed doing, and reached right in. We were so focused on that little screw that we hadn’t paid enough attention to what was around it. We should have covered it or undone the battery.

Sometimes we do the same thing with people.

We hear one side of a story and figure we’ve heard enough.

Somebody tells us what a neighbor said, what a church member did, or what a family member supposedly meant, and before we’ve checked anything, we’ve got our screwdriver out.

We’re ready to straighten somebody out.

Then we cross a connection we didn’t understand, sparks fly, and somebody gets hurt.

Proverbs 18:13 says: "He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.”

That’s a plain way of saying we ought to hear the whole matter before we open our mouths.

A few verses later, Proverbs 18:17 reminds us that the first person to present a case can sound right—until someone else comes along and asks a few questions.

There may be something we haven’t heard. There may be a hurt we don’t know about. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation that never made it into the version passed along to us.

 We’re quick to get mad, quick to speak, and slow to listen—especially when listening might interfere with the opinion we’ve already formed.

Wisdom takes a little more time.

It asks another question. It listens to the person involved. It prays before it reacts. And sometimes it decides that a matter doesn’t need our involvement at all.

That doesn’t mean we never confront a problem or make a hard decision. It means we take enough care to understand what we’re reaching into.

That tractor taught me something: being certain you’ve found the problem doesn’t mean you understand everything connected to it.

And a few seconds of checking beforehand can save a whole lot of “shew” afterward.

So before you reach in to straighten somebody else out, slow down, ask God for wisdom, and make sure you haven’t got your wires crossed