Painting the House - Devotion for 5/17/07

Painting the house – Devotion for 5/17/07

Back when I was in college, one of the ways that I earned money was by working as a painter in the summer and over Christmas break. I really learned about manual labor in those times, and I learned a lot about overcoming my fear of heights as I had to carry these heavy ladders and then climb them to paint the side of these apartment complexes near the college campus of East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. I worked with a real interesting group of guys, many of whom I wonder if they are still alive today. One dude was so clumsy that he fell off the roof 2 times within the same week and yet never broke a bone – he just sort of bounced when he hit the ground, which may have been a product of the amount of alcohol in his system at the time. When we would finish a job I would love to step back and look at what I had accomplished. I would even drive by and take notice of the trim work that I had done around the windows, and I would notice those high gables that I had painted as well. The funny thing was that when I looked at a job that we had completed, most of the time I really only looked at the work that I myself had done. And the only time I really noticed what someone else had done was when they had messed something up like painting uneven trim or dripping paint on the roof (still a pet peeve I have when I see paint drippings on a roof!). The reality was although I really only paid attention to what I had done, it was truly a team effort – something we all did together. And if I had had to do it all by myself I would not have finished the jobs in time to be able to get back to school at the end of the summer. On top of that, when I would look at a finished job, very rarely did I think about the role that our boss played in it all, even though he was the one who went out and got the job for us, provided us with all the tools necessary for the job, and even paid us for doing the job. If our boss had not done his part, then we wouldn’t have had anything to do.

I think it is a natural tendency to want to look at what we have accomplished. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul is addressing some division that has taken place as some people claim to be followers of Paul, and some claim to be followers of Apollos. Paul had come to Corinth and preached the gospel and many people believed. Apollos remained there in Corinth and helped build up the church. Each one played a different role, and people were finding ways to differentiate their work. So this division was taking place between people who wanted to give credit to Paul and people who wanted to give credit to Apollos. Paul steps in and addresses this issue: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). Paul acknowledges that yes the work of Paul and Apollos was important and needed to be done, and but that work is nothing without the work of God who causes it all to happen.

I believe that we still struggle with issues like this today, and sometimes these types of issues are the reasons for so many church divisions. But the thing is each one of us – all of us – has a role to play in “painting the house.” Every single one of us has a role in the building up other people in the Good News of Jesus Christ – some may be responsible for moving the ladders (doing the hard work of the church), some may be responsible for training new employees (Sunday School teachers), and some may be responsible for painting the trim (doing the little things in the community and for your neighbors to show the love of Christ), but we all have a job to do. God – the Big Boss – has provided us with all the tools we need for the job. God has gone out and lined up before you people in your lives for you to work on. God has done His part. Are we doing ours?