Dry Erase Markers
I recently hung a new whiteboard, you know, one of those newfangled contraptions that replaced the good old fashioned chalkboard… Let’s face it, running your fingernails over a whiteboard does not have the spine tingling impact of doing that on a chalkboard! Did you just wince at the thought of fingernails on a chalkboard?
The supplied hardware was four tiny screws and some drywall anchors. To assure everything was properly installed, I wanted to test the system by writing on the board, just to make sure it would not fall off the wall. I had to scrounge around for some dry erase markers. I found about a half dozen of them that were saved from a previously discarded whiteboard. I uncapped one and started to write. Now if you are getting ahead of me in this story, you are anticipating one of two things: one: the board fell off the wall; or two: the marker didn’t work. I supposed the better story would be if the board dropped to the floor, that did not happen. Nor, the marker not working… well not totally working…
The marker did not have enough ink (or whatever they call the stuff that makes thing write). It would not make a solid line, mostly partial streaks; and at certain angles, one could feel the marker stop the flow of what little ink there was. So, I tested another, and another, and another… Mostly the same results, some worse, some totally dead. I was tempted to leave the dried out ones for the next person, you know, to see if the marker would start to work again… However, I pitched them into the nearest waste receptacle.
Testing the dry erase markers. This got me to thinking, “This is how most people must think God tests us.” Once the dry erase markers cannot fulfill their designed purpose they are soon disposed. Does God put us to the test, and when we do not fulfill our purpose, does God soon dispose of us? How many times will God use us until we are used up? Is that even a fair question to ask? The prophet Jeremiah seemed to answer the question:
My people are the ore that is being tested.
Observe them,
and examine their ways.
They are all stubborn rebels,
walking in slander.
They are as hard as bronze and iron,
and all of them are contaminated.
The bellows blows hot to melt away the refining agent with fire.
The refining agent is completely used up, but the evil is not removed.
They are classified as rejected silver,
because the Lord has rejected them.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%206&version=EHV>
Take the test, fail, be discarded. That is the result of sin in this fallen world. St Paul tells us that through Jesus we should not see ourselves that way:
So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come! And all these things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, inasmuch as God is making an appeal through us. We urge you, on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%205&version=EHV>
Also from Paul:
Now we have been released from the law by dying to what held us in its grip, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the letter of the law.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%207&version=EHV>
“What held us in its grip”? Ahh, back to the dry erase marker analogy! We were held in the grip of sin, tested and rejected (Jeremiah) used up and discarded. Now reconciled by Jesus, we serve in the new way of the Spirit! Read the writing on the whiteboard, it was put there by Jesus. (Not the above pictured whiteboard, that was put there by me!)
Trust the Promises
Steve Skiver