This weekend, my husband and I spent a lot of time on our hands and knees, cleaning and sanding… and cleaning and sanding… our wood floors. We had put down the first coat of varnish last week. Then that needed to be sanded and the bubbles and rough spots that occur in the application process smoothed out to prepare for the second coat. This is not an easy task. To look at the floor from a standing position, it looked pretty good. I could see some of the blemishes that needed to be fixed, but when I stooped down closer, I could see even more. But, what I could not believe, was the number of blemishes that I had missed even in stooping down to look at the floor! In my sanding, so many more areas of the floor that needed to be taken care of could be seen as soon as I hit them one time with the sander.
And, as I was down on my hands and knees with the loud electric sander, watching these new and more blemishes appear, I got to thinking…
If we had decided to just sand the spots that we could see that were rough, we would have missed so many blemishes that we were catching now with the sanding. I was more and more grateful that we had decided to take the time to sand the whole surface, the longer that I sanded. I’m sure all those other blemishes would have shown up down the road, but how much better that we were finding them now.
And I thought of my own life. And the faithfulness of my Father to bring trials into my life to show me my blemishes and to work out His perfect will in my life. Sanding is rough on the floor. It’s taking off that surface layer that hides the imperfections. God is not satisfied with having the imperfections in me glossed over. He is faithful to bring into my life little annoyances, little inconveniences, little trials… and the big ones, too… so that I can see past that glossy surface to the real condition of my heart. He knows that condition already and the sanding of those trials in my life is Him working to perfect that work He has started in me (Phil. 1:6). He’s not okay with leaving those blemishes in me – He is faithful to take the time to sand them out.
For that, I am grateful. I might be okay with taking the easy street of having those blemishes glossed over. But He is not. And so He continues to show things to me in my life that I need to confess and turn from.
“that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,” -1 Pet. 1:7
