A WASTE OF TIME
MESSAGE ON A BILLBOARD IN CHENNAI:
“Let us strive to speak fluet English”
The train just started to move out of a station on the way north where we stopped to let off and pick up a few passengers. That’s when I saw her. An older woman in a ragged sari with her skirts tied up. She had one of those Indian brooms. I’m not sure what they are made of. Just a handle with a bunch of “sweepy” sticks tied to it. She was sweeping dirt and dust on the platform.
The entire train station was surrounded by nothing but dirt! She could finish the platform and go back and start again! It would be just as dirty! It certainly struck me as a monumental waste of time.
This thought came into my mind: It’s just like people who try to clean the sin out of their own lives. They can work at it all day every day and never make a bit of progress. The moment they think they have made themselves clean they can look back and see they are just as full of sin as before! We can never sweep our own lives clean of sin. We don’t need a better broom. We don’t need more time. We need to be picked up and placed in a different world! We need God to come in and not only sweep us clean but also remove all the dirt that surrounds us. Only then can we be clean.
Then, on the other hand, think how dirty the platform would become if she didn’t sweep it!
“Let us strive to speak fluet English”
The train just started to move out of a station on the way north where we stopped to let off and pick up a few passengers. That’s when I saw her. An older woman in a ragged sari with her skirts tied up. She had one of those Indian brooms. I’m not sure what they are made of. Just a handle with a bunch of “sweepy” sticks tied to it. She was sweeping dirt and dust on the platform.
The entire train station was surrounded by nothing but dirt! She could finish the platform and go back and start again! It would be just as dirty! It certainly struck me as a monumental waste of time.
This thought came into my mind: It’s just like people who try to clean the sin out of their own lives. They can work at it all day every day and never make a bit of progress. The moment they think they have made themselves clean they can look back and see they are just as full of sin as before! We can never sweep our own lives clean of sin. We don’t need a better broom. We don’t need more time. We need to be picked up and placed in a different world! We need God to come in and not only sweep us clean but also remove all the dirt that surrounds us. Only then can we be clean.
Then, on the other hand, think how dirty the platform would become if she didn’t sweep it!
posted by Shiloh Guy @ Thursday, February 21, 2008
1 comments
1 Comments:
David,
What a conundrum: Is the reformation effort pointless or how much worse would we be if we weren't reforming?
You raise thought provoking questions :)
I think it is so interesting how God directs our thinking, and challenges our presuppositions, through the simplicity of life... I wonder if that woman will ever have a sense that she provoked a question in anyone's mind that day. And whether our lives lived raise questions about how God will work in the lives of others.
Hey, do you have slides of this trip? Next time I'm passing through Michigan, I'd love to see them!
Doulos
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