OnFire Encouragement Letter

Hi folks:

Not much news this week from our family. Jan and Mark’s passports arrived and they continue to prepare for Denver in April. We heard this week from friends who will join us on PEI in the summer. We’re looking forward to that.

The OnFire Weight Loss group started this week. Its not too late to sign up. Check the website for details http://www.onfireletter.com

Blessings for your week.

Troy

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Last Friday morning found me perched on an old oil tank so that I could help a man from my church nail plywood over the windows of an old building. As he held the plywood, I told him that ministry was interesting because I never knew what sorts of things I might be doing from day to day.

Without any pause he spoke. “It all goes back to carpentry doesn’t it? After all, Jesus was a carpenter.” I thought that was pretty cool. This retired truck driver has a lumber mill and identifies with Jesus as The Carpenter.

“It all goes back to carpentry.” Jesus may have given up the plane and hammer a long time ago, but he is still building lives, constructing them from the stock of our character.

I’m building a podium. Wood working is a hobby and a friend has a great shop. Before Christmas we went to a local mill and selected some oak. Understand - this is not like going to a home reno shop and picking up nice smooth boards. We get it the way it comes off the saw blades. Its rough and splintery (if that’s a word), hard to handle.

After the boards adjusted to life indoors, we put them through a planer, where two steel blades shaved the board at the rate of 300 cuts every second. Each pass revealed a little more of the grain and we repeated the process until the board was smooth and even.

That smooth and even board is a picture of goodness. In the same way that we must prepare lumber to make fine furniture, we need to take our raw faith in Jesus and add to it by planing out all the bits that aren’t smooth. In 2 Peter 1:5, Peter tells us to add goodness to our faith. We all have some goodness in us, but are we as good as we can be? I think we know the answer.

We have some old wooden chairs in our church. Its interesting that the top side where a person sits is smooth, but the bottom is not. I suppose the maker thought that the side people didn’t see didn’t matter. That’s OK in a piece of furniture. But in our character it leaves us unfinished, and life has a way of turning us over to reveal what’s underneath.

By removing layer after layer of roughness, Jesus reveals the straight grain of goodness. We become the building material for something in his plan which has beauty and function.

I hope this helps. Be OnFire.

Troy

ON FIRE is a weekly letter of encouragement by Troy Dennis. To be added to or removed from the ON FIRE list contact him at onfire@eastlink.ca . Archives are located at www.onfireletter.com This letter published Jan 15, 2008.