Something I've wanted to to do for quite some time

Having regular office hours gives me a chance now, to sit down and write out my thoughts.  I realize that some of you might be thinking "this won't take much time."  This is however, something I've wanted to do for quite some time.  I hope this blog will serve as an encouragement for you.

Sometimes God uses very little things in our lives to get us to think.  The widow's two mites, the "still-small voice," a boy's lunch, and maybe a not so familiar thing.. a palm sander.  What?  you've never heard the parable of the palm sander?  Well let me fill you in.  

A member of our church, Heritage Baptist Church in Traverse City, asked me if I owned a sander.  To which I replied, "yes, I do"  He went on to explain how he had 22 doors that he had to refinish at a business that he and his wife own.  A simple request, I know but even that little request was used to cause me to think.  The doors that he was refinishing were in fine shape, he didn't need new doors.  The cost alone of removing, destroying, and replacing all of those doors, even if he were able to get a good deal on them at $100 a door would be a rather large undertaking.  No, he didn't need new doors just to refinish the old ones.  So what tool could he use?  A sanding block? Wow! What a task!  A 15 amp Belt sander?  Can someone say overkill?  and how would he get to the detail parts on the panels?  How about a Palm sander?  Perfect!  Just the right tool for the job to be done.  You might be asking yourself, or like I do, ask the computer out loud "How would this be encouraging?"  I was getting to that.

See, we, as Christians, get to places in our lives when we need a little "refinishing."  We get into ruts, get bumped into, scar, some of the work that God does in our life loses its luster because we are in the world on a daily basis.  So God needs to do some refinishing.  One of the great things about God, is that He knows exactly what is best for us.  He uses the best tools possible for our good.  Thankfully, He does not destroy us whenever we get this way but decides to put the effort into refinishing us.  He sometimes uses circumstances that knock off rough edges, or people at the right time and place to scrape some of the marring off.  Sometimes its a message at church or a blog post.  Whatever it is, God likes to spend the energy in this refinishing process.  Though this illustration has its flaws,  one of them being that this church member will be finished with the doors in a day or two, it does serve as a reminder that God works on us to perfect us, to make us like His Son.    Consider this, what if the doors decided that sanding hurt too much, or they just didn't want to be sanded down?  Sounds silly doesn't it?  But how different is this to our own lives?  We need to yield to God's "sanding"  and allow Him to work on us.  He knows what is best and remember also that the tools He uses are also the best no matter how different you might think.