Cover Up Job

My son Jordan's graduation party is this Sunday. As the Sabbath approached this evening, I began to realize that, though so far I'd made good progress on my "honey-do" list in preparation for the event, it was going to be a race against the clock to get all the tasks checked off by sunset. So, I began to cut some corners. Rather than sweep out the garage, I took the wet dry vac, plugged in the hose to the blowing connection and proceeded to blow dirt around. Some of it actually made it out the door. The rest went to the four corners and dark crevices of my garage. But the main part of the floor, the part that company would see, looked clean. That was what mattered.

Then there was the chipping and peeling paint on the front window trim. Given more time, I would have taken a wire brush and scraper to it. But, as the sun crept lower in the horizon, I desperately grabbed brush and primer and began slathering it on. And, I have to admit, it looked pretty good, well, at least from further than five feet away. That would have to suffice for now.  I told myself this was just a temporary fix. A quick touch up job. I'd come back later when I had more time and do it right. After all, no one was going to inspect it that closely anyway.

As I was dabbing my brush at a small section of bare window trim, trying to gingerly push the brush under the edge of a bulging chip of old paint, I couldn't help but think that it is a good thing I don't approach my spiritual growth this haphazardly. Or do I? Have I ever, in my desire to appear the good Christian, done a quick "cover up job," knowing full well that just below the surface things are a lot uglier than I'm making them appear?

In Psalms 139:23 - 24 we read, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting."

David, it seems, wasn't much into cover up jobs. He wasn't into facades, into maintaining an image. He knew that God sees through all of that anyway. He wanted it all to be out there. He wanted the bare wood, the chips, the dirt of his life to be clearly revealed. He wasn't interested in quick fixes. He wanted the job done right, regardless of how painful it would be.

To be honest, David's prayer scares me a little. It means taking a wire brush to my heart. It means pulling off the facade and being willing to let others see the cracks, the loose paint below the surface. It means allowing God to scrape down to the bare surface of who I really am and then deal with it head on. It's not a painless process. But it seems to me, for the person who truly desires to be more than just a spiritual pretender, who truly desires to become like Him, it's a necessary one.

We have a choice you and I. We can fake our way through this Christian walk, pretending that we are growing, saying all the right things, doing all the right things, impressing all the right people, but never really being changed, never really growing down deep inside. We can look awful good to others on the outside by  focusing only on the externals, slathering paint over the cracks and peeling paint, or, we can be honest with ourselves and with God, asking Him to do His work in us. We can ask Him, as David did, to search and know our hearts, to try us and change us from the inside out and lead us in the way everlasting.

I pray for the courage to choose the latter.