Don’t you love it when you are on schedule for an appointment and suddenly a train crosses the road in front of you? You can forget about being on time. It happened to me today. I entertained myself by looking at the graffiti on the boxcars that slowly rolled by. One particular boxcar was splendid. The graffiti was true art. It must have taken hours and several cans of spray paint to produce what I thought was a masterpiece. What a shame that it would never be in a museum for all to see. Instead just a few will be able to savor it as they wait at the blinking red lights and clanging bell.
There are people like that boxcar. Through the years they have allowed God to paint them into being a masterpiece. They will never be famous. Only their fortunate families will know who they are. They will never be mentioned in Time magazine. They are just kind, warm, generous decent people that make the world work.
We feed ourselves on a diet of bad news from the networks and our newspapers and we become overwhelmed with the idea that everyone out there is evil and corrupt. But it’s not so. This country works because there are a million masterpieces getting up in the morning and going to work and coming home to be good parents and good members of their communities. I’m sure we all know such people. But better than knowing them is being one of them. God wants to paint us into splendid examples of how wonderful people can be. Unlike the boxcar that will rust away, God’s masterpieces will someday be in His throne room on display for all to see. That’s us! That’s worth an “how grand.”
Written by Roger Bothwell on March 6, 2014
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org