Allow me to digress for a moment. Picture a Swiss Army knife. Folded into one small package is a combination of pliers, wire cutters, blades, scissors, screwdrivers, bottle and can openers, a toothpick, and tweezers. Depending on the model, you might also have a saw, a pen, a ruler, a magnifying glass, or a fish descaler (that’s a real thing available on the Victorinox SwissChamp and Angler models). Each tool has a purpose: holding something steady, gripping something tight, cutting into something, tightening or loosening a screw, opening a bottle or a can, and even removing fish skin. Some uses are obvious while others become apparent only when you encounter a problem they can solve. Yet many of us carry these tools with us every day, ready to unfold whichever is needed at a moment’s notice. Except, of course, you can no longer carry such items through airport security, where your preparedness may end up in TSA’s bin of confiscated property.
My belief in God is similar. I carry it everywhere I go, and whenever I need to, I can reach for my “Swiss Army God” and unfold a different tool: gratitude, patience, humility, courage, compassion, forgiveness, or trust. Life gives me plenty of opportunities to figure out which tools I need and how and when to use them.
Years ago, a significant drop in income threatened the lifestyle my family and I had become accustomed to. In partial response, I replaced a rather expensive BMW convertible with an old and dented Honda Civic with a manual transmission. The Honda became one of my favorite cars ever. There was something wonderfully freeing about having a car I no longer used to keep up appearances or bring meaning to my life.
Though I knew I needed more income (a problem I eventually rectified), humility helped me reconsider how much I actually needed and gratitude helped me enjoy what I had. Looking back, I believe God encouraged me to keep that car for my own enlightenment. While there’s undoubtedly a happy medium between a BMW convertible and a dented Civic, discovering how much I could enjoy having less was a powerful lesson.
I recently shattered my heel and that injury has provided me with daily opportunities to practice patience, accept help, redefine love, and appreciate an otherwise functioning body. Gratitude helps me notice what I still have. Compassion helps me consider others with limitations, both visible and hidden, temporary and permanent. Through belief in God, I can approach this frustrating experience as a chance for spiritual refinement. Otherwise, I’m simply a guy with a broken bone that time and PT will heal. My pastor asked me last night whether my broken heel was one of the best things to happen to me. We agreed that maybe it was.
As my heel will one day be repaired, I eventually restored my career and income but now find myself staring at another potential career crossroad. As I consider my next professional chapter, I know I will need—and am confident I possess—abundant humility, courage, and trust. This confidence leaves me feeling not nervous, but cautiously optimistic. Whatever job I find, I intend to work hard, discover a new talent or deepen an existing one, and thrive. While I look at opportunities, reflect, and regroup, I’ll also take a swing at real estate investing and revisit the websites I’ve been developing. Belief in God helps me put effort into what I can control while remaining open and adaptable to what I cannot. If things go well, I’ll express gratitude to God. If they go poorly, I’ll consider what He may be saying to me or asking me to do. That is a tool that is not available to agnostics.
But how do I recognize which tool a situation calls for? How do I distinguish an opportunity to persevere from an invitation to change direction? This is where prayer comes in. It gives me time to examine my motives, ask what God would have me do, and contemplate an answer. Sometimes I need courage to proceed. Sometimes I need humility to admit I’m wrong. Sometimes I need to stop contemplating and make a phone call, write a letter, or visit a friend I’ve been meaning to see. With these tools ever at the ready, I find them easy to unfold.
Prayer can be difficult because it requires me to face realities I otherwise keep myself too busy to confront. In this constantly moving, scary, lovely, and all-too-short life, it is easier to keep going than to pause and consider whether I’m going the right way. I have many tools I can count on for help but possessing a tool and knowing how to use it are different things. Prayer helps me discern the difference.
This is one reason I hope so deeply that those I love will find God, too. I want them to get their hands on a spiritual multitool of their own, something they pull out in hardship and uncertainty, where gratitude, patience, humility, courage, compassion, forgiveness, or trust may be called for, as well as in the beautiful moments that deserve gratitude and attention. I believe church can help us develop our relationship with God, but what I’m wishing more than anything for my loved ones is the relationship itself: the power and perspective of believing in an all-loving, never-failing God.
A Swiss Army knife is tangible. I can see it and hold it and show you what its blade will cut. God, however, is largely invisible to the human eye. I believe in Him and hope in Him, but I have no proof that He’s using a dented car, a broken heel, or a pause in career momentum to shape my life. If someone were to ask whether I’m simply telling myself a useful story, I might say, “Kind of.” I cannot demonstrate His existence or His involvement in my life, but I can see how believing in Him changes my response to whatever life throws my way.
And I get better with practice. Patience becomes more useful when I exercise it. Humility becomes easier when I admit my mistakes. Gratitude grows as I pay attention. I will never be perfect, but each time I reach for my spiritual multitool, I become a little more familiar with what I can do with it.
You never know what the day will require, which tools you’ll need, or what unexpected use you’ll find for them. Sometimes a knife becomes a screwdriver. Sometimes disappointment becomes an invitation. Sometimes failure brings about humility. If you could carry something around with you that helped you find gratitude in abundance, perspective in hardship, forgiveness in failure, and courage in uncertainty, wouldn’t you want to?
I carry mine everywhere I go. And nobody, not even airport security, can take it away.