Good Fences Make Good Faith

“Seriously? Another one..” I mumbled, my shirt drenched with sweat, the perspiration running down my forehead as I stared down at the hole that surrounded the pole digger. “We just had to dig another one didn’t we?”

At that point I had come to an important conclusion: if I were to die it was going to be at from a leftover piece of concrete that was never dug up the last time a new fence was put in. Pulling the long handle and the rounded edge of the tool I had used to burrow into the ground with I stared down at my new arch nemesis, barely exposed as it just peaked out from the dirt. I grabbed my crowbar and jammed it into the ground with the words “From hell’s dark heart I stab at thee,” escaping my lips. Sure, it may seem overly dramatic but Ahab had his Great White Whale, and I had my Great Grey Chunks of Concrete, and both, oblivious to the inevitable destruction they were determined to heap on us, were ready to drag us to the depths.

Over an hour...

So deep in that hole it took over an hour to get it out, but finally it came loose and, with a sudden jerk, it was out. Unlike Ahab there was a moment when to bask in the inevitable victory that came from the culmination of that long struggle, man versus hole, man versus concrete and man eventually won. With little other trouble I got that hole to about three feet, the pole went in, the new concrete was poured and the fence was put up.

The next day, as I sat, drinking my coffee, my body pretty much recovered in the good night’s sleep that my expended energy afforded me, I found myself thinking about it, particularly that last hole I dug. Truth was, that pole didn’t need to be replaced, not like the others that were knocked down by the falling tree that crushed the chunk of that fence, but still, the thought was, while the supplies were there and the others were being replaced this one should be too.

It made me think a bit about faith...

Here’s the thing about it I guess. Our faith is a lot like a fence, meant to keep us sheltered from this world, and our trust in God, it is our strength against the temporal, keeping us carefully blocked from the evil of this world. (2 Samuel 22:33) Yet there are times when storms brew in our lives and troubles come that blow with such a heavy wind and pour down on us with such a hard rain that it knocks that faith over.

It’s here we have a choice, we can let our faith remain down, we can hastily just try to put a quick new fence of faith up that will blow down with the first wind that brushes against it, or we can do it right and make sure that it is sturdy and strong, capable of withstanding. The question then becomes, are we the wise or the foolish builder? (Matthew 7:24-27) Are we the ones to build our faith in a way that doesn’t last and that won’t stand up, or are we to be the ones who will build it so it remains even against the harshest of winds? Are we to be the ones that let it collapse and leave it collapsed in a pile of heap and rubble or are we willing to rebuild, knowing it can never be taken from us, knowing that as we rebuild it, submitting to the designs of God, the storms of this world will subside around us? (James 4:7)

Sometimes it can be hard work, the devil and this world make sure of that, they ensure that as rocks are buried and roadblocks are put in the way of our success. But, with God, we have the strength to overcome, even if it does take a while (2 Timothy 4:17) if we just keep our hope amidst our perseverance knowing that the time will come when our labours draw to a halt because we can look upon the work we have done in the grace and the power God has given us, and know we have something that will last.

At least that’s how it seems to me....

God's Warranty

I quickly turned, my arm moving rapidly with my body. A moment later I heard the sound, the splash as coffee flew from my cup and splattered down. A second later it dawned on me what I had just done. The best shot, the best basket of my life and I couldn’t even brag about it. Had this been a carnival I’d be up to my neck in cheap, choking hazard stuffed animals with a hit like that, but, instead of that small feeling of triumph I was hit with a sense of sheer stupidity.

Fishing an iPhone out of a cup of coffee, not perhaps the best feeling in the world...

I stared down at it, the jumbled mess as I wondered just how much damage I had caused, knowing that though sponge dinosaurs and water may mix well, electronics and the thick sludge I call coffee, perhaps not so much. The thing was completely ruined, I couldn’t get it to shut off, I couldn’t get any of the buttons to press, the screen looked like one of those scrambled channels that just made no sense at all, and there I was with a deep sense of how idiotic I could be to have had let this happen.

Eventually I got to the Apple Store, and an appointment with one of their tech people. A few hours later I sat down with her and explained how it was that I found myself in this predicament as she told me that they didn’t cover water damage. I told her, if it makes it any easier, my coffee is more like syrup than it is water. Truth was she was great, I think she realized, looking at me, this was a one in a million shot, that I wasn’t sitting around trying to slam dunk my phone into coffee and that, chances are, I’d never be able to hit my cup like that again, and she replaced the thing.

Taking my sweet time to get to it, I do have a point though. I guess, what it comes down to is that we all make stupid mistakes, mistakes that combine things that never really should go together as we find ourselves just thinking, “Seriously, how stupid am I?” Truth is, we know they are accidental, that they happen without us even realizing until they make a splash in our lives a lot like that coffee did when the phone went flying into it. It’s then that we need to go to our greatest tech support system and explain, knowing that whatever the problem is God will fix it.

That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? When it comes to the accidents in our lives and the mistakes we make God doesn’t tell us we have a limited warranty, nor do we have to worry that there is a clause in our redemption that voids it if we do this or that. Through Christ there is limitless, unconditional love to heal us, (Romans 5:6-8) looking at all the damage that can be caused to us and repairing us completely as our wounds are bound. (Psalm 147:3)

Consider the limitless measure of that grace that saves us. Our works, they yield sin, even if the sin is purely accidental and our accidents can break us, yet it is by faith through the love of God that we are saved through the power of the Spirit, and not by our own hands. (Ephesians 2:8-9) That is a blessing in so many ways as God offers Himself so freely to us for our strength as He gives us something better than what we ourselves can yield. It is here that whatever warranty He has on our lives it completely covers us and is completely irrevocable as He carries us to the places we need to be. (Romans 11:28-29) After all, by His love, we are born of Him through the blessings of His salvation, (1 John 5:1) and He fully and completely guarantees that salvation through all the days of our lives.

What a blessing that is, what a hope that is as we look to our lives and find that, as much as we may stumble so obliviously, God is there for us each and every step of the way in the hope He has for our lives.