Photo and Commentary ©2026 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, June 5, 2026
Over the last couple of months in Shelley’s and my neighborhood, we’ve been seeing several kinds of heavy equipment. Since our own cul de sac isn’t affected, I haven’t needed to get a comfortable grip on what’s been happening, but it has to do with the water system, and involves replacing segments of pipe which travel from the main line under each street to the water meters for each dwelling.
I’m no longer a boy whose heart beats faster watching tracked diggers at work, or dump trucks dumping things, but all this kind equipment has been methodically lurching about, placing huge iron panels over not-yet-filled holes.
I was interested in the device you see above. It’s immensely powerful – you can see a bit of its “track” at the photo’s lower right – and the hydraulically-powered hinged assembly is perfectly capable of clawing up and removing whatever materials the streets are made up.
But notice that the above photo shows three options for earthmoving. The machine itself seems to be attached to the farthest-away scoop, the one with four claws. But stacked this side of it are two other scoops, a narrower one with just three claws, and a third (on the bottom) with no claws but just the blade.
This is going to seem a bit strange at first, but this assembly might be something like the way God works. He has to do some mighty “earth-moving,” mainly by pulverizing hard human hearts. But He doesn’t use just one method. With humble hearts He is gentle, and with tougher personalities He sometimes needs to act more emphatically.
Bottom line? Make it a frequent habit to pray as David did, in the last two verses of Psalm 139:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting. (Verses 23 – 24 NKJV)