I had a pretty mixed up, unexpected weekend. I had to go out-of-town, and I had to come face-to-face with some of the less than lovely parts of my own history and less than lovely traits of my own character.

Ever feel like no matter how much you pray, and how much you read your bible, and how much you go to church, that whole “new life in Christ” thing just won’t stick? That the old you is just bubbling under the surface, waiting to burst back onto the scene?

Like you’re not being refined by the fire, you’re just being burned alive?

We’re all just rickety old wooden fences.

Warped and twisted, bent and broken. Knocked down by time, by storms, by pressures outside of ourselves. Lucky to still be standing at all, and of no real use to anyone.

And the Lord saves us, and makes us whole and useful again. He pulls us straight and true and stands us up tall and strong.

And for a while we’re feeling great and nothing can get through us.

Then we start to feel worn and tired again. And we look around and start to think, I haven’t been “made new”, I’m just a patch job. And a bad one at that.

Or maybe–

Just maybe–

You’re just not looking close enough…

The Lord doesn’t do things half way. Just because He uses the same boundary lines, doesn’t mean He built a new fence on rotten old fence posts.

I don’t know how I can be a new creation, and still be me. I don’t know how I can be red-hot with anger, or puffed up with pride, and still turn the other cheek. I don’t know how I can face the pain, and still let it go. How I can burn with words and still stay silent.

How a heart can bleed so much, and still beat.

I just know that He’s still working on me.

And sometimes it probably requires a chainsaw more than sandpaper.

 

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