I was cleaning out the gunk between the spaces on the bottom step of my deck on Saturday. Using a screwdriver, I would pop out large amounts of seeds, leaves, feathers, more seeds and occasionally a confused bunch of ants and other creepy crawlies. As a metaphor for church, I’d like to use this if you’ll permit the allusion.
In the great deck of life here on this earth, we are forever getting caught in the cracks. There are pitfalls aplenty for those who are looking as well as those poor, unsuspecting souls who aren’t even looking. We get mashed together in this small space of thinking about life and what it’s all about.
Every now and then someone comes along and pries us out of those spaces and “airs” us out. They give us something to think about that doesn’t fit into that small space. They say something so outrageous or original we are ejected into the light and wonder, “what happened?” If God is like that cosmic wielder of the large screwdriver, then it is indeed apt that he is the one to pry us out of that small space and gives us light, so that even the “creepy crawlies” of us, who don’t deserve the light, are exposed to it nonetheless.
I wonder sometimes if it bothers him that we seem to thrive so readily in those cracks and crevices without even trying to get into the light. When I exposed those ants they scurried madly to try and get back to that dark place they were in, because it was all they had known as their shelter and their refuge. But I like the light. My shelter and refuge should be out and about, above ground and above board.
Is that where your life is? Are you in the cracks and crevices, lumped up with all the drifted up spirits and half shredded seeds? Or are you like the brave sowbug--a creepy crawly for sure, who mightily climbs to the top of the stair tread to see what’s on the outside? I'm sure he is wondering where all that light comes from. Come and join me explore the world in the light as we come up for air. And watch out for the cracks and crevices!