It’s month 9 of the World Race. I’m in Santiago, Chile, at a home called Casa Esperanza. It’s a place where young girls can come to live while they work or study to give them an alternative to being on the streets. For the past week, my teammates and I have been painting at an orphanage with which our ministry is associated.
Today after having a roller of fresh paint fall on my face (see the video, courtesy of my teammate Alaina, below for a good laugh), I paused to gain some fresh perspective on our work this month. The ceiling we were working on angled up very sharply. I looked up and saw Alaina and Rachel on the rusty scaffolding, chipping away at an old layer of paint so that we could apply a fresh new coat.
As I watched, I actually heard the Lord speaking to me as we were painting, which is exactly what I’ve been hoping for – to find him in the mundane tasks of the day.
I realized that this process of what we’ve been doing to that room is a lot like the process he takes us through in our lives. As we choose to submit to him, we allow him to take his scraper and chip away at our old selves. It’s a process, and some parts are much harder to get off than others.
Part of what I saw was that we had started applying fresh paint to the lower parts of the ceiling that had already been scraped while Alaina and Rachel were still working on the higher parts. God doesn’t wait for all of the old to be scraped away before he starts applying the new paint. Often his work can begin at one level, and some of those same issues come up again. That doesn’t mean that he never chipped away the old on that first level, but some wounds go deep, which requires another level to be scraped off.
I can speak from experience. You don’t want to hurry the process. If you don’t let the Lord thoroughly chip away the old, then when you apply the new layer, it will look patchy and inconsistent because you can still see the old layer underneath the new.
But when you let the Lord scrape away every bit of the old paint, he will apply the new paint with just the right pressure and won’t drip paint on the floor like we did. He may go over it several times so that it is thoroughly covered. He is a master craftsman so when he finishes the job, it will be beautiful and inviting for others to come and enjoy the space.
God is chipping away some things in my life right now. Sometimes I grow impatient and want to rush the process, but I am so grateful for this reminder to allow him to work in his timing. I know when I do that I can trust that the new color he is applying to my life will be a testament to his ability to restore.
