filthy rags
"All of us have become like one who is unclean,and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and made us waste away because of our sins.
Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand."
Isaiah 64:6-8, NIV
today is my store's ops excellence day - the day in which my district manager spends the entire day inside our store going over sales, budgets, cleanliness, partner development, etc. needless to say, it's a big deal for everything to look spotless and for everything to run seamless.
last night i was on my hands and knees in the staircase (my store has a staircase because it has a basement for a storage room - it's cool, but then again it's hard work). the baseboards and the stairs needed a good scrub, and i figure if i wanted it done right, i might as well do it myself. it was no surprise to me that there were drips and stains and spots of coffee on the walls, on the railing of the staircase, behind the door to the staircase hall. coffee was everywhere! and rightfully so, we're a coffee house. it just makes sense.
but as i was on my hands and knees, this little rag that was originally a spotless white color soon became the most grotesque brown. and let's just be honest, coffee is oily and gritty, so all the residue of the coffee i was cleaning up just stuck to the surface of this rag, and ultimately stuck to my hands. i could feel old coffee grinds and oils on my fingertips and between my fingers and under my nails. it's a dirty business this coffee business that i'm involved it.
i stood there for a while and was reminded of the passage found in isaiah where the prophet speaks of our righteousness as filthy rags. funny how the more we strive for right standing with God in our own understanding and our own knowledge, the more our natural, gritty, oily, dirty human imperfections defile what should be spotless. i have a tendency to take things into my own hands when i see that there is a need. i push and i pull and i work hard to fulfill what i sometimes assume the will of God is for my own life. and it gets me nowhere, and it is a messy process that i fall into time and time again.
yet in His loving way, our Father in heaven takes a risk of getting a little dirt underneath His fingernails. He takes us, filthy rags and all, and He soaks us in the blood of Jesus. so we were once brown, and we become a crimson red in order to ultimately return to being the spotless and pure children we were originally meant to be. we are His "workmanship", as ephesians 2 says. (the word "workmanship" there is the greek word "poema" where we get our english word "poem".) we are His masterpiece, His finest work. we are His beloved and He is our love.
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