"And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.' Also he said, 'Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.'" -Revelation 21:5
I have a door in my living room.
I realize that's not a particularly noteworthy statement by itself, of course. Most people have doors in the their living rooms to one thing or another. But my door is different. It's not attached to any hinges. It doesn't lead to any other space. It just leans against the wall.
I got this door from my friend Jonetta. She lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina and takes care of her grandchildren a lot of the time. We met about 6 years ago when I was leading a group of high school students at a camp called Salkehatchie. We spent the week in stupidly humid July heat replacing Miss Jonetta's roof and the floor in her kitchen. It was a full week's worth of work to say the least.
One of the minor projects we took on as well was replacing Miss Jonetta's front door. It was old. It had cracks covered in duct tape and the panes of glass were held in by nothing more than thick layers of caulk. It was leaking heat and A/C, causing her electricity bill to skyrocket, just stretching her already thin budget even tighter.
Miraculously, someone had volunteered to donate a new front door if our group would install it. What a guy or gal! When we'd finished replacing the door, we took the old one over to the dumpster and prepared to toss it in. And then I got an idea.
God uses an awful lot of the "wrong kind of people" in the Bible. Moses was a murderer. Rahab was a prostitute. The disciples were a hodge-podge bunch. David was so unimpressive to Samuel that Samuel thought to himself, surely not this runt! Paul was a genocidal systematic killer. Abraham was old. Heck, Jesus was from the wrong side of the tracks and was born in a sheep trough.
And Jesus spent a lot of his time with the wrong kind of people, and every kind of wrong. He spent time eating with the tax collectors and Pharisees, the people we pick on today in sermons for being self-righteous. He spent time with teenagers and fishermen, the every day kind of workers. He spent time with the lepers, who were kicked outside the city gates to live in a separate community because they were unclean. He spent time with women and Samaritans. He spent time with the lost causes.
It's a lot like Miss Jonetta and her door. It would be really easy to dismiss her. If I hadn't had a reason to meet her and get to know her, I'm sure I would've overlooked someone like Miss Jonetta. She didn't have lots of money and lived in a fairly "left-behind" kind of neighborhood.
And her door didn't have much use. But I saw art in it somewhere. So I took it back to the church and stared at it for two months. Seriously! It just sat there while I thought about what to do with it. And then inspiration started to sink in. So I got some paint. And I printed some pictures. And this is what came out:
God doesn't forget about lost causes. I've become convinced that lost causes aren't a concept in God's vocabulary. I imagine that when God looks at all of creation, us and all the rest, God sees a lot of masterpieces that just need a little refresher, a little love, just like this door.
I wish I could see people the way God does. I wish I could see people as beloved children of God in every situation. I wish I didn't overlook people or dismiss people for this reason or that. I wish I could always see the Master's craftsmanship in my own life, let alone my neighbors'. There are no lost causes in God's family. Things in need of a touch-up? Absolutely! People with some scratches and dents? For sure! But God's never left someone behind because they didn't have it all together or because they'd gotten too scuffed up.
May we all learn to see God's fingerprints in our own lives as well as our neighbors'. May we be the kind of people who point others to their worth instead of drawing attention to their scars. May we be the kind of people who move beyond the guilt of the cross and celebrate a God of resurrection and shalom! And may we learn to make masterpieces out of the lives God has crafted.
forever unfinished...
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