I'm no longer a rock

June 23, 2013

So I don't have much to say.  Life here just seems to keep on going and nothing much seems to happen, except you clean everything way too many times because it keeps on getting really dirty.

All I have are thoughts that come to me while I'm cleaning the same thing (again).  So, welcome to (some of) what I think about when I work.

I've been painting trees and rocks white for over a week now. (Why we do that isn't too important.)  And they never seem to be white enough.  Either there are crevices in the bark I can't reach, the paint chips, or dust blows on it and makes it look more tan than white.  And always, always, always, we think we're almost done ("Just those three trees over there and then we're done!"), annnnnnnnnd from out of nowhere, a few new rocks show up, or we're told the first five coats weren't white enough.  (Ok, I might be exaggerating a bit here, but this is what it feels like.) And all I want to do is say, "Enough!  I'm done. They're never going to be white. Forget it." I never end up doing that, but I want to.  So what's the point here?  Well, when I look at those rocks and trees, I see me and I don't see me.

I see me as a rock that just will not stay white.  No matter what I do, I can't stay clean.  I am always tainted by sin and when I finally think I've got it down, I've painted myself all white, the sun comes out and my paint cracks because I can't do anything to make myself good enough.  All my efforts will fail.  Really encouraging, huh?

Actually, it is, because, remember, I don't see me in the rocks.  The rocks are me before I accepted Christ's work on the cross for me.  Now that I've seen that I can never paint myself white enough and I've received the grace offered to me at the cross, I look at those ridiculous rocks and am happy.   That's not me.  I don't just have paint that doesn't chip; because of Christ's work on the cross for me, I'm no longer a rock.  My entire nature has been changed and what God promised in Ezekiel 36:26 - "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" - that's happened.  I'm no longer a stone; I'm a heart of flesh.  Now, I still have flaws that I'm working on, but the work is no longer painting over my flaws and hoping you can't see them. It's removing them from my entity because Christ's blood is so good that it doesn't hide my flaws, it exterminates them.

Even though I so hate painting rocks and trees now, at least God gave me this thought to make it a little better, because the work still has to be done.  I'm just happy I'm no longer the rock in the picture.