painting the future

Painting is a hobby I enjoy.

Not that I ever get round to it much. But I like it. I enjoy the pleasure of child-like creativity.

Well, I was painting today. A different sort of painting, however, and not the sort that really turns me on.

Not the sort of sketch-pad type of painting with a water-colour brush. But up a ladder, brush in hand, and painting over metal on the 'Wayside Pulpit' frame.

In other words, nothing to make the Michaelangelos of this world begin to feel that there's a new kid on the block.

This was routine, maintenance sort of stuff.

I wasn't exactly prepared for it. But the thing needed done and I was around and I knew it wouldn't take long. It didn't.

We've a little, five foot notice board, which climbs behind the pavement wall, to advertise to people at the traffic lights who care to look the details of our congregation's life. And the thing is really rather out of date.

It looks like a thing from a previous generation. And some of the info is far from contemporary too. It's needed change for a while.

And the change is on its way! This coming week, by all accounts. A whole new board, with graphics, text and all the rest combined, to get across the message that we want. It should be good!

But it meant we had to paint the frame before the thing goes up. The time is short, the chance was there - a lovely day with the forecast of a few more days like this as well - so nothing like our seizing the moment and getting the painting done.

We just rolled up our sleeves, got out the ladders and polished the whole thing off. Well, not a literal polish, of course! There were three of us there, so it didn't take all that long.

There are dirty jobs which sometimes must be done before the change can be effected and a lovely new creation then appears.

It was cold today, freezing cold (and the only sort of change of clothes I had - because I hadn't been expecting this at all - was a couple of scanty T-shirts): and the job gets your hands and your arms all clarted with paint (the way I do it anyway!).

But it needs to be done.

And the same is true of so much of the way that God works. Jesus had to roll his sleeves up, get out the ladder (to climb down, not up, of course) and get his hands dirty with stains far worse than paint.

But the end result was pretty good! A whole new life being given to a broken, needy world. I guess he always figured it was worth it for the end result. One of the early writers puts it in a slightly more flowery way - "for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross".

I wondered today, when I was out and up and working away on the frame, I wondered if that's always how it is. It's a dirty, unattractive business bringing change.

Painting frames is always less appealing than the moment when the whole new board goes up. But the latter never happens 'til the former work is done.

So a lot of the time our lives are just a slog. Out in the cold with a brush in hand and painting the frames for a future that's yet to come.

And when you've done the work, you look at it and think, have I really made much difference here at all? (We painted the frame blue again, the same colour as before)

Today's been mainly the 'slog' for me. Preparation for the coming Sunday services.

A few more things than that, of course. Some admin things. Some people to be seen. Some letters to be sent. Some papers to be written up and saved.

But mainly simply preparation for the coming Sunday services.

Painting the frame, as it were, in preparation for the brand new board of God's own speaking with us as we gather for our worship once again.

Did I really make much difference by the work I did today? Well, I painted the frame.

Not just the literal painting: not just the frame of the notice-board, up there by the side of the road.

But preparng the way for the Lord to reveal himself once again.