Frozen Calipers and Stuck Spots

On our way home from camping, our brakes were heating up, so we had to pull over in the parking lot of a church where this wooden cross was on the far side of the parking lot.

So while Jonathan showed Sam how to pull the tire and check to see how the caliper was frozen up, and how to spray some penetrating oil,
Hannah was taking pictures of me by that cross.

It was a sacred place, it seemed to me,

quiet and pretty and holy.

I didn't care that it was a Baptist church.

It was still holy, and as I admired the trees and flowering bushes in front of it, I thanked God for this little humble spot in southern Colorado where a broken down motor home could stop for repairs. 

And I stood by the doors and prayed for all the precious people who attend this little place--

and for those in our own church, and others.

Because so many times there are more things than brake calipers that get frozen up in lives,

causing things to heat up and smoke to rise and 

yes, a big stink. 

And that is why we need to just stop sometimes. 

Just stop by the old rugged cross.

It's there we can ask for the penetrating oil of the sweet Holy Spirit
to be applied to that frozen caliper,
to that fear, that anxiety, that wound, that stuck spot,
and to free it up with the truth that sets free.
A cross is an amazing thing. It's not made from a tree full of branches.
It's made from lumber that has been stripped and sawed into pieces, like this lumber we watched being stripped on our way down the mountain.

 And God knows that there are a whole lot of branches on each of us that

are mostly just that--branches that aren't all that useful 

when it comes to His plan for our lives.
It was amazing watching this big machine grab these trunks of trees and strip it bare of branches,
then saw it to the correct length.

This machine grabbed several trees at a time and hauled them where they needed to be.

And yes, sometimes life does seem to kind of treat us this way, 

just kind of grab us and haul us around,

leaving us sort of swinging and off balance

and feeling kind of awkward.

But then we get set down, and the dust settles, 

and the dizziness lets up, and the storm calms,

and we realize God wanted to do something more, different, and better with us than He'd done before.

All in the middle of the terrifying stripping of branches, we realize He has a plan.

He wants something besides a needled pine growing on the mountainside in the middle of a bunch of other pines.

He wants lumber for a house or a bridge or a barn or a trellis--

or a cross.

And so He marks our tree for the lumbering project.

 It would be easy to turn away from God's plan--

the pruning of unnecessary branches,

the carrying of the cross.

No, Lord, not that!

 But in His tender love, He keeps stripping away the things that don't honor Him,

the things in our lives that hinder His plan.

 We may think we need those branches for robins to perch on,

for chipmunks to scuttle on. 

Branches are necessary, and beautiful, aren't they?

 Sometimes God has a different plan.

 What we see as beauty, He sees as unfruitful.

What we see as just a part of us, just a part of our personality we were born with

or raised with,

or formed by habit,

He sees as ugly and disgraceful.

 Are we willing to be stripped of things that are part of us,

and even dear to us,

so that the glory of His power may be seen in our earthen vessels?

So that we can truly cherish the "Old Rugged Cross...
And exchange it someday for a crown"?