Bruce's truck had a gas leak the other day so he was catching the gas in a container until he had time to work on it. Well, Sunday, when he went to check on things before the evening service he got gas all over his beautiful tie. It stunk so bad. I took the kids on to church and he showed up later, after having changed his shirt and tie. I really loved that tie, too. It goes so well with the shirt he had on, which goes so well with his eyes. In my opinion, anyway. :)
When I was doing the wash last night, there it was. Hanging on the back of a chair. I knew better than to throw it in the wash. I knew if I did, something good was not going to come of it.
I did it anyway.
What was I thinking? His tie is a mess. It looks like a limp tube, the stitching has come undone around the bottom and there's white lining falling out of it. Oh dear. I just don't know what I can do for it. And it wasn't a Wal Mart tie either. It was a really nice one! No doubt, bought by my mother at some point... (because I buy Wal Mart ties.)
Isn't life like that sometimes, though?
There are things we know we shouldn't do because the Bible warns us not to do them. And yet, we do them anyway. And then our life begins to stink with the smell of sin. So we try to clean it up ourselves, and just make a bigger mess of things, when really, we just needed to turn everything over into the Lord's hands and make it right with Him first. He always knows how to clean us up, even when we think we aren't worth cleaning.
We stand back, looking at our mangled and torn up lives, wondering how God is going to fix us and make our life beautiful again.
But it's not up to us to wonder that. All we have to do is trust Him. He is God and He can take those things that have crushed our spirits, those things that have hurt us and brought us so much shame, and He can use them to build us up to bring Him glory and honor.
I thought of this song as I pondered over these things this morning:
Something beautiful
Something good
All my confusion
He understood
All I had to offer Him
was brokenness and strife
But He made something
beautiful
of my life
My hands, I don't believe, can do anything for this poor tie, but God... He can take our broken and torn life and make it into a masterpiece, if we will just place ourselves in His hands.
The Bible says in Hebrews 5 that there are pleasures in sin for a season. Seasons change from one to another, over and over. They do not last.
BUT!
Psalm 16:11 says "Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is FULLNESS OF JOY; at thy right hand there are PLEASURES FOR EVERMORE."
