My daughter held my hand as we watched a tv on dvd show together. She was not trying to receive comfort or affection; rather, she was giving me a special manicure. Using differing strengths (grit) of files, and working from the largest grit to the finest, she filed and buffed my nails. By the end of the show, my once ridged and dull nails became smooth and shiny like they were coated in nail polish- but they weren’t. I honestly didn’t know you could do that to nails.
There are parallels to this type of manicure and our lives. Instead of doing a proper job of filing our nail ridges, we just cover them over with ‘pretty’ polish. In the end, the ridges usually show through and ruin the finish. But, if you do the job correctly, allowing yourself the time to do so, the ridges will be gone and the nails will look shiny and feel smoother than you can imagine.
Sometimes in our lives we try to cover over our rough spots thinking- it’s okay if we keep those ridges in our lives as long as they remain covered up so no one can see them (unless they look too close.) So, we cover up our bloodshot eyes from drinking with cool shades, our overindulgence in deserts and snacks with tummy tuck panties, and our single person dating ‘hickies’ with high necked shirts.
We cover up our slander or gossip under the guise of ‘just praying for them’, and hide our personal ambitions by saying ‘God wants me to’ when He said no such thing. We conceal our lack of relationship with God by attending church functions, and our lack of reading the Word with lengthy, spiritual sounding public prayers. We are masters at covering up our sin so that we don’t lose our reputation for ________ (fill in the blank) with those who know us.
Really, what are we worried about… that they might find out we’re sinners? (Gasp!)
Do we really think we can hide our rough spots from God? He sees all (Ps. 33:13-15) and He knows all. (Ps. 139:1-4) There is no place we can go to hide our sins from Him; (v.7-9) they will eventually show through. Even those that don’t show up while we live on this earth will show through in the end time judgment exposure. (1) Beware! It’s better to deal with them now, than later.
God doesn’t want us to have that phony shine anyway. He wants us to have a ‘natural’ God made shine, which He helps us to acquire by bringing special blessings into our lives: the neighbour whose cat continues to pee on your garden, the Christian committee member who keeps reminding you of how you can’t seem to do anything right, and the boss who yells at you for no reason. Then there’s the worship leader who always gives you the cold shoulder, and that man who keeps taking your seat at church… but you’re sure you never did anything wrong to deserve any of this treatment. The truth is, you might not have, but God will bring these blessings into our lives to help smooth out our rough spots. We want life to be soft (easy) like a chamois to remove the rough edges rather than a file, but the right file is the file God sends.
He gave us His Word to help teach, guide and lead us in our lives/ behaviour. (2Tm. ) However, we all know that reading it doesn’t always mean we change, so sometimes God utilizes the help of those people around us to help smooth out our rough edges. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth…” says Heb. 12:6. The first word means train, educate, discipline, and the second, to flog. So my guess is that if the ‘educating’ of the Word doesn’t work in removing our rough spots, perhaps the ‘flog’ will come into our lives to start filing away at them. Maybe once all those rough spots are removed and buffed, our nails/ lives will shine like God intends for them to do!
1. (the Lord) …who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts… 1Cor. 4:5
…be sure your sin will find you out. Num. 32:23
For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Luke 12:2