Straight Paths- The Yellow Tablet Test

The Yellow Tablet Test

Loren Hardin

The Ashland Beacon

             This is part two of a series about Bill, who enrolled in hospice when he was eighty-nine. Bill retired as the superintendent of the electrical and communications departments at the New Boston steel mill. Bill proclaimed, “I was always big on safety. We used ultrasound to find the dark spots in a piece of steel, drilled them out, and plugged them.” Bill suggested, “God tests us to see what we’re made of too.” Bill also tested his men to see what they were made of. Bill explained: “After I taught a fellow how to wire a three-way switch, I asked him, ‘now do you understand it?’ When he said ‘yes,’ I told him, ‘Well, then you are close to the time when you are going to have to take a test. Explain it to the guy next to you; explain it to the group.’” 

             Bill elaborated: “I was meeting with my group, and I asked them, ‘Does anyone know how to line out this circuit?’ A fellow spoke up and said, ‘I think I can do that.’  So, I gave him the yellow tablet test. I handed him a yellow tablet and told him that I wanted him to draw it out for me. I told him, ‘Take all the time you need. There’s no rush.’ He came back to me and said, ‘Bill, I couldn’t do it; you made a liar out of me.’ I told him, ‘No, you did that yourself.’”

            Bill continued, “We had a job opening and another fellow had been telling me for quite some time that he would like to work with me, so he applied for the job. I saw that he’d worked on planes, F-14s or F-16s­­­­, whatever they were back then, and I asked him, ‘So you’re an electrician?’ He told me, ‘I want you to know what my electronics experience has been. When a transmitter wasn’t working in a plane, I would attach a few wires to it and test it, but the pilots usually already knew what the problem was. If it didn’t work, I just loosened a few bolts and took it to the repair shop where someone who knew what they were doing fixed it. I just want you to know exactly what type of electrical man you are getting.’ I asked him if it was alright if I used him to do a few odd jobs, jobs that nobody else wanted to do, and he said, ‘It’s alright with me!’ I thought, ‘Now that’s a guy I can work with,’ so I hired him.” 

                During one of my visits, Bill explained convection heating to me, and afterward asked, “So, do you understand it?” I promptly admitted, “Not really! And I’m sure not going to pretend to, because I know you’ll give me the yellow tablet test.” Bill chuckled and replied, “You’re right.”

             I believe God, like Bill, is big on safety too. He tests us to see what we are made of. He identifies the dark spots, drills them out and plugs them up with words of truth and life. King David wrote, “The refiner’s pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the hearts,” (Proverbs 17:3). And the writer of the Book of Hebrews wrote: “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joint and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and opened to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account,” (Hebrews 4:12-13).

               In conclusion, I think we would be wise to heed the exhortation of the Apostle Paul to the believers in Rome: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.…Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given us, let us use them,” (Romans 12:1-8). Therefore, instead of pretending to be something we’re not, let’s tell people exactly what type of a person they’re getting. And let’s be willing to do a few odd jobs, jobs that nobody else wants to do. I’m confident that my departed friend, Bill, would tell us, “That’s a guy that God can work with.”  

                “Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,” (I Peter 5:6); “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted,” (Luke 14:11).