Lessons From Refinishing

I've been working on a refinishing project for my friends. I picked up a table and chair set for 50 bucks at a garage sale for them, but they seriously need refinished...can anyone say 70's finishes suck? Since the set has been sitting in my garage all summer I decided to start working on refinishing it because I have basically nothing else to do with all my free time (except may be read). Well, at first I was a little overwhelmed as this is my first refinishing project, and I felt a little like maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew. But as I've been working on it, God has really been using it to show me some cool things about how He refines us.

This is how I kind of see it (P.S. God is really cool because He gives me awesome real life analogies for what He is like) we are like the table and chair set...we have this yucky 70's gross finish on us. It is covering us up and masking us and making us just downright ugly. Then God comes along and says "I see a lot of potential in you. If you will let me work on you and refine you and help you out, I believe that I can really make something of you."

So He starts by removing the old finish. He strips us bare before Him, and removes all the gross yuckiness from us. Sometimes it is really down deep in us, and it takes a couple of tries to get rid of it. And what He reveals is this beautiful core down under the finish. He starts to reveal our true beauty and true self to us, but He doesn't stop there.

Up to this point it has been a fairly easy process, relatively pain free, but now comes the more difficult part. Then He starts to sand on us. This is when so many of us say that we are willing to stop right there. We look so much better without all the gross stuff, and dang it, sanding hurts. (I'm not sure if you've ever accidentally gotten your skin with sandpaper, but it is painful to say the least.) However, sanding is essential to becoming the finished product that God wants to make us into. It removes the last of the old finish, and prepares us to receive the finish God wants to put on us.

See the thing is after you take off the old finish the wood looks better, but it doesn't truly shine until it has another finish put on it to bring out the beauty of the wood.

After the sanding, God is almost ready to put the finish on, but first He has to remove all the dust and impurities from us so the finish will take. Once we are clean and free of the impurities, He starts to put the finish on, and we start to glimmer and shine and show the beauty that He originally saw in us.

God as the Refiner, gets great pleasure from refinishing us, just as every step along the way, I got great pleasure from seeing the progression of the chairs I was working on. I have often asked God how I am supposed to enjoy Him when He is sanding on me and when He is purifying me and it hurts. And He told me that because He gets pleasure out of working on me, that I should get pleasure out of it too. I see now what that means.

I have 4 of the chairs done with just one chair and the table left to finish, and I love the way they have been turning out. It gives me great delight to see them turn out so well for my friends, and I know God feels the same way about us. He is so delighted to see the people we are becoming for Him when we allow Him to refine our hearts and lives.

Heading out for SGF now...whoot whoot!! Peace Yo!