Jesus & Lao Tzu On Doing All Things Well

After a healing miracle, people said that Jesus did “all things well.” How can you develop a similar reputation for excellence?

As the embodiment of living and loving Tao, Jesus demonstrated skill in everything he did. After Jesus cured a deaf man, people “were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well.” Part of Jesus’s skill was a willingness to flow with the circumstances that life presented him. In the twenty-seventh verse of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu says that developing this type of excellence-through-flow will help you to help everyone.

Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching

Verse 27, J.H. McDonald Version

A good traveler leaves no tracks,
and a skillful speaker is well rehearsed.
A good bookkeeper has an excellent memory,
and a well made door is easy to open and needs no locks.
A good knot needs no rope and it can not come undone.

Thus the Master is willing to help everyone,
and doesn’t know the meaning of rejection.
She is there to help all of creation,
and doesn’t abandon even the smallest creature.
This is called embracing the light.

What is a good person but a bad person’s teacher?
What is a bad person but raw material for his teacher?
If you fail to honor your teacher or fail to enjoy your student,
you will become deluded no matter how smart you are.
It is the secret of prime importance.

Go with the Flow

Once, when Jesus was teaching the crowds, a man named Jairus approached him, begging Jesus to heal his daughter. Jesus could have sent him away, saying, “Can’t you see that I am teaching?” Yet, the master was willing to flow with the circumstance and skillfully change his direction.

On the way to Jairus’s house, a woman who had been sick for years reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’s garment. Immediately, healing flowed from him. Jesus could have treated her with disregard. She was, after all, a woman in a patriarchal society who had touched him without his permission. What’s more, Jesus had already allowed one distraction, leaving his audience to go to Jairus’s house and heal the man’s daughter. Yet, Jesus dexterously turned aside to address not just her physical requirement but her spiritual need as well.

Finally, when the time was right, Jesus and Jairus arrived at the man’s house. By this time, because of all the distractions, his daughter had died. Yet, Jesus sent the doubters away and raised the girl to life. The Master was able to do all things well because he exercised skill, and because he learned to go with the flow.

Lao Tzu writes, “A good traveler leaves no tracks, and a skillful speaker is well rehearsed. A good bookkeeper has an excellent memory, and a well made door is easy to open and needs no locks. A good knot needs no rope and it can not come undone.” Of course, the Taoist teacher speaks in hyperbole, but his point is clear to see. We practice skill when we flow with the Tao. This makes it possible for miraculous things to happen.

Embracing the Light

Lao Tzu continues, “Thus the Master is willing to help everyone, and doesn’t know the meaning of rejection. She is there to help all of creation, and doesn’t abandon even the smallest creature. This is called embracing the light.” Jesus not only embraced the light, but he said, “I am the light of the world.” But he did not claim this distinction exclusively for himself. He also said, “You are the light of the world.” By taking on the same mantle as Christ, every believer naturally flows with the same virtue, the same light, the same Te.

Developing Virtue

The Chinese word Te means virtue, the ability to do a thing skillfully. When we flow with the Tao, we develop a natural skill. In another Taoist text, Lao Tzu’s follower Chuang Tzu tells the Tale of the Dexterous Butcher:

Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. At every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee – zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music.

“Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wen-hui. “Imagine skill reaching such heights!”

Cook Ting laid Taon his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now – now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.

“A good cook changes his knife once a year-because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month-because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room – more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.

Flowing in the Anointing

When you flow with the Tao’s virtue, your work becomes a blessing to everyone around you. Christians might think of Te as the Holy Spirit’s anointing. Unfortunately, many believers consider this anointing to flow without any effort on the part of the person exercising his or her gift. But the story of the Dexterous Butcher shows that, while this anointing is indeed a spiritual gift, Te comes over a long time of working with the Tao.

The Secret of Prime Importance

Lao Tzu says, “What is a good person but a bad person’s teacher? What is a bad person but raw material for his teacher? If you fail to honor your teacher or fail to enjoy your student, you will become deluded no matter how smart you are. It is the secret of prime importance.”

Jesus demonstrated that this is true. If Jesus had only gone about doing good, helping and healing people wherever he went, it would have been mere philanthropy. But Jesus used these opportunities to teach people about the Way. The relationships he developed with his disciples caused each one of them to dedicate their life to becoming spiritual teachers themselves. Because of this discipling aspect, Jesus’s teaching about the Way has continued through the generations. Learning from others, and being a willing teacher, is the secret of prime importance.

Learning and Discipling others

In the same way, those who study the Tao of Love can become skillful at all they do. When you operate in your anointing, your work flows naturally. You are able to help all those around you, embracing the light and shining it for others. But if you leave your practice there, you have only done half the work.

Being a follower of the Way means learning from Jesus, Lao Tzu, and other spiritual teachers. It also means discipling others. Whether you volunteer to lead a youth group, serve meals at your local homeless shelter, or help with arts and crafts at the nursing home, the people you encounter are not just ministry projects. They aren’t potential converts. They are people who have come into your life for relationship. Some are your teachers, and some are your students. Some, blessedly, are both. When we move skillfully through our day, following the flow of Tao, we find ourselves not just helping people, but healing their spirits.

In Partnership with the Spirit

Take a quiet moment and consider the way you move through life. Are you making plans that are so concrete and inviolable that they no longer leave room for the Holy Spirit’s direction? Are you relying on your own skill alone, or are you also putting into practice the gifts of the Holy Spirit? By learning to operate in the flow of Te, you do two things. First, you honor your own skill by practicing so you can develop it better. Second, you rely on God to hone that skill to perfection. This combination of your own talent and the Holy Spirit’s anointing results in a partnership that can’t be beaten.

Consider the conjoined blades of a pair of scissors. Each half is sharp in its own right. Separate from its mate, each part could slice or jab effectively enough. But, paired with its partner, scissors can do the work for which they were truly intended. On your own strength, you can do a lot of good. You might also do well without preparation or practice, by relying on the Holy Spirit to guide you. But when you combine your natural talent with the flow of divine virtue, you can be like Jesus, and do all things well.

Pray…

Artful Source of all virtue and grace, thank you for each day that gives me opportunities to operate in my own strength. Remind me that these are occasions for me to allow divine anointing to break through. May I never become so confident in my abilities that I neglect the gift of God that is stirred up within me. Help me to be like Jesus and flow with each moment’s opportunity. Enable me to move like the Dexterous Butcher, so flowing with Te that everything I do bears the mark of excellence. And may I do all this not for my benefit, but for the good of those around me. Amen.