Old Picnic Tables & Persevering Grace

Sunny, warm, blue skies and 68 degrees. All signs of the not to distant Spring. In SC we call this Winter!! I worked in our yard today. One of my tasks was the final dismanteling and discarding of an old picnic table (28+ years old).

This piece of outdoor furniture had been well preserved. Each season I sanded the surface and applied copious doses of polyurathane to protect it from the elements. We paid $79 for this table and benches in 1980. Our 3 children enjoyed many burgers and much laughter gathered around this stalwart of summer fun. We moved three (3) times in those 28 years. Each time it was re-assembled and faithfully did it's summer duty with loved ones gathered around it's oft re-furburished surface.

While the reliable functionality of this table had long since passed, it was still a considerable effort to reduce it to pieces small enough for the "politcally correct" trash haulers to cart away. It resisted with gusto. It did not yield to the "final passage" qucikly or simply. There remained a teancity to fulfill the purpose for which it was created.

As I strained to reduce it to the status of "just trash" it ocurred to me that this is parallel to God's abundant GRACE in our lives. In Regeneration, He has acted to 'make the most of us'. Each morning His mercies are abundant and new. His grace is sufficient. His cleansing and forgiveness are ours through confession and repentance of sin. He daily "re-finishes" us and keeps us in service. What a GREAT God we serve.

The best news - - at the end of our days, we will not be discarded. We will be made "COMPLETELY NEW". And, as David said, "We will be satisfied when we awake with His likeness" (Psalm 17:15).