Through the Wringer
My dad had a poster near his desk with a Raggedy Ann doll bring squeezed through a wringer. (If you know who and what I am talking about feel free to skip the next paragraph! If you don’t know, the internet will tell you more than you ever wanted to know, but read on.)
Raggedy Ann was a storybook character that was a doll made of and stuffed with cloth: flexible, durable, washable. A wringer was like two hard rubber rolling pins placed close together and turned by a motor that would squeeze the water from wet clothes. I have broken a wooden spoon in one, and if you happen to get your finger in it, your finger will be crushed and broken. It’s some kind of powerful squeezing! (This was how it was before washing machines spun the water out of the clothes.)
So, back to the poster…The caption read: “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.”
This is a true statement.
About last week’s fault line…the relationship involved has been mended through truth-telling of many kinds, but the misery involved has been real! Submitting to examination has not been fun, and resolution was a relief, but it was just the prelude to several weeks where I can count on being challenged in every possible way.
If there are fault lines I have not yet recognized, they will be mapped.
Where there are personality flaws (whether or not I have struggled with them in the past), they will emerge in full view.
The reality of transformation into the image of Jesus will be confirmed AND denied.
Whether I have been feeding the old nature or the new will become evident.
Welcome to drama rehearsal season, otherwise known as the Litmus Life, where my response to difficulty and will reveal the true pH of my faith.
To be honest, this is every day! The things that God has orchestrated to do His work in our lives are the everyday things. Peter talks about “trials of various kinds” that test our faith; these things include people not listening to our instructions, not obeying the instructions they hear, dogs doing things we don’t want them to do, bugs eating the garden, ants swarming the dog’s dish like Black Friday shoppers at Wal Mart, leaky hoses, pants that don’t fit anymore! The places where my faith shows up as intact there is peace, patience, joy, kindness, self-control. The places where it doesn’t are revealed in angry words, unnecessary yelling, unkind inflection, self-preservation, self-interest…
Hmmm…sounds like Galatians 5:19-23 that compares the “deeds of the flesh” with the “fruit of the Spirit. I would love to pass the fruit inspection and have my faith show up as genuine and not some Sunday morning make-believe. So, as much as I may dread the process of the wringer of truth, I welcome its work. I want to be like Jesus.
That’s why I am following Jesus every day in the everyday,
Christi
0 Comments