Yesterday evening I was "helping" my uncle in his barn, when I say helping I mean I was doing the work while he spent his time hunting down the next tool I would need to get the job done. The task at hand is one that we have been putting off for quite some time now; completing a wrap around work bench in the tool room section of his barn. The reason we've been putting it off is because of the wood being used for this project: 4"x7" rough cut lumber, twisted, cracked, wood that originally came from large industrial pallets the length of a rail car, to say this was probably the least suited lumber for the job would be an understatement.
As I was diligently working each board; strategically prying, wedging, cutting, hammering, drilling, and screwing; I began to think about another carpenter. I don't know if I ever thought much about the similarities of being a carpenter working with rough raw material and God working in rough and broken people. As I slowly and methodically work each crook, twist, and bow out of each board; I can not help but think of the correlation with how God, Jesus, and his Spirit that lives in me is slowly straightening me out. There is nothing that the board beneath my hand can do to straighten itself out, nothing can be done under its own will, no amount of want or work on it's part can change its twisted and flawed existence. Though this twisted and flawed board would have no reason to believe that it was worthy of being placed atop this sturdy yet humble work bench; the truth is that I have chosen it for that and I will make it worthy, I will straighten it out, I will make it able to fill the need I have for it. This board may not have known what it was made for and even now as it fulfills that role it still does not know, but it is filling that role just as it was slowly shaped to do so.
This board and I have so very much in common. I don't know what role God has in store for me, or how he plans on using me. One thing I do know is that just as I shape and change a piece of wood to fit the plan I have for it, Jesus is immensely more capable of shaping and changing me to meet the role he has for me and my life. I know how flawed I am, how crooked, how twisted, and how unable I most surely am to fill whatever role he has in store. I know that he knows all of my shortcomings more so than I ever will. I also know that he has a plan for each of us; though we may believe that we are the least suited for the role; and he will make us into what he needs us to be. He does not call the able, but enables the called. Truly a carpenter of men!
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
(Ephesians 2:10)
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