My father-in-law is a jack-of-all-trades. He’s the kind of guy who knows how to do anything. (Anything except make his daughter submit to her husband, that is.... lol! jk. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one.) But seriously, he can fix or build pretty much anything. He’s in his 70’s and he stays on the go all the time doing stuff here around the camp. He’s a huge asset to the ministry here in Brazil. But when you’re like me (I like to refer to myself as being a non-mechanically inclined un-carpenter) it’s a struggle not to feel inferior when you’re measured up against him and when it comes knowing how to do stuff. And it’s especially difficult living this close to him and not being able to all the things that he can. And to have to see him working and building something everyday and not having the ability (or desire, haha) to do all the stuff he can do... it’s hard on the ego. So, when there’s something to do here at the camp, that’s within my sphere of knowledge and that I know I can handle, I jump right in and do it. And I usually try to do it alone so that I can prove to myself and everyone else that I’m not totally useless when it comes to construction projects. And that brings us to today’s blog.
I poured a small concrete pad the other day. It was about 12‘x 10’. They don’t have cement trucks that bring you what you need here, you have to mix it by hand. Not that big of a deal... so I thought. I had Marlon help me mix it and I formed it up and poured the pad. Again, not that big of a deal. Not that big of a deal... “when you have the right tools!” And of course, here I don’t. Surprise, surprise. And it’s not like there’s a Home Depot right up the street that you can just go grab what you need either. If you don’t have the tool you need, oh well. You’re just out of luck. What you have to do then, is make something from scratch. So after I poured the pad and skreeding it (that’s where you take a board and pull it across the concrete to smooth it out) I was sitting there admiring my handy-work drinking some guarana (a Brazilian soft drink). Then MJ walked-up and made a snide comment about the fact that it didn’t look perfect. She said something like, “did you mean to leave those little pot marks in it?” Which made me want to try and make it better. That was a mistake. So, I tried to make a homemade float (a tool we used in the States to smooth out concrete) out of a board, the handle from a broom and some duct tape- to smooth it out better. And, to make a long story short, I totally jacked it up! I totally messed-up my perfect (so I thought) little pad. So I fixed it the best I could and called it a day. I was pretty discouraged and it wasn’t pretty.
Then I had to go to Quatro Barros (a nearby town) to run some errands and was gone about an hour. When I got back the kids met me in the driveway and were all saying, “Dad don’t be mad but one of the dogs ran across your pad.” For real? You’re kidding, right?” So, I made my way over to where the pad was and sure enough... dog prints all over that thing. As a matter of fact there were also cat prints (we don’t own a cat!), bird prints and frog prints! That’s right, frog prints! What are the chances of that? But the funny thing was that I wasn’t mad at all. As a matter of fact I actually felt better than when I left it. Why? Because all the animal prints had totally taken the focus off of my cruddy cement work and put it on the copious amount of animal footprints (or paw prints if you want to get technical, haha) that now littered my once beautiful (in my mind) pad. Awesome. Now nobody could see how bad my cement work was because of all the footprints and I was happy.
If you think about it though, that’s similar to the way that God sees us who are Followers of Christ. He doesn’t see all the sin and brokenness that we have in our lives... all He sees is the blood of His Son. Man, what a relief. I don’t have to struggle with the fact that I’m not perfect because “the Blood” takes all the focus off me and puts it on the sacrifice Jesus made. So that means my imperfections (and yours) are hidden in Christ. I John 1:7 says, “if I walk in the light as He is in the light, the blood of Jesus continually cleanses me of my sin.” What an awesome promise. Thank you, Jesus for your sacrifice.
Thankful,
Jim
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