All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…Isaiah 64:6a
An eighty year-old friend of mine told me of a cruel joke her older siblings would play on her when she was a little girl in order to prove their dominance. They told her they were going to give her to the “rag man”.
She explained a man came through the streets with a horse-drawn carriage collecting old rags and other broken down items people no longer wanted. He was the precursor to the junkman. Her brothers and sisters were in essence telling her she was junk and unwanted.
Growing up in the 1960’s, it was common to see bumper stickers proclaiming that “God doesn’t make junk.” That’s true. But we no longer live is the Garden of Eden. Sin has invaded our world and seeped into our lives. Hate to say it folks, but when our humanistic society tells us that we are all essentially good inside, it is lying. We are not. One of the first things babies learn to do is manipulate others, think of “me” first, and tell falsehoods.
We are junk, but that doesn’t mean we are not wanted. God wants nothing more than to restore us back to priceless. He has bought us from the rag man through His own death for our sake and washed our filthy rags to become garments of pure white. He make us sinless…over and over again. Jesus paid the price to buy us back on the cross when God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2Corinthians 5:21
What does that mean?
Perhaps you once played with a commercially made Raggedy Ann or Andy — the cloth
courtesy of peskybombolino
dolls with a red heart painted on their chests. Originally homemade rag dolls were sewn from leftover clothes, odd buttons and whatever stuffing was around the house. But the cool thing? Each was unique. Each took time and imagination to create. Each came from junk and were transformed into a gift of beauty by the labor of love.
God can take whatever has become ragged and junky in our lives due to sin and make it into something good and of worth. We will never be thrown into the pit or garbage pile once we agree to become His child. His love for us makes Him pursue us so eventually, even if we fight it, we will yield to His restoration process.
No one likes change. It can be scary. But God loves us enough to accept us as we are yet, in spite of our raggedness, still wants to change us into His likeness– stitch by stitch, just like the rag doll.
So climb onto the rag man’s cart. God is not finished with you yet. Deliver yourself into the hands of the Master and watch your beauty being restored from the inside out. It may take a while, perhaps a lifetime. But God is a patient, slow to anger, and compassionate. (Psalm 103:8-9)
I’m another rags to riches story in the making. How about you?
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grouse about it. How often does He detour me from danger and I complain because things are not happening “my way”? How often were those irritating moments that delayed me –like the cat hacking a furball in my shoe just before I went to slip it on, or a button snapping that I have to quickly repair, or the moving van blocking my exit from my apartment complex for a few minutes– actually work to my advantage without me knowing it?
You want to pull it, but you know you shouldn’t. That dangling thread on the seam of your clothes is bugging you. Does that describe your life?
dangling thread lest it unravel us. Hope, bolstered by prayer, is the best way to re-anchor our faith. We need to allow our Lord to be the needle which can guide the wayward thread and knot it so it doesn’t affect the rest of the hem that is our life.
If it is on us, then perhaps it is why we seem to fall short each year. After all, Paul reminds us that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
Perhaps, instead of focusing on how we should change, become more aware, adjust our weight, habits, etc. we need to shift our focus to the Cross. Not rely on our own strength, or even ask God to give us strength, but for Him to be our strength. May we choose to be other-orientated and open to being used to His glory. Let God set the path, and be pliable enough to be molded in the way He wishes so we can be His hands and feet in this world and point others to Him, not ourselves.
I always took the first part of the passage as an action. In my church, each Sunday we pray for the president, governor, Congress, city council and mayor. Over my life there have been times I gritted my teeth, but prayed anyway, out of obedience. After all, that is what Scripture tells us to do, right?
But we can act out what our coinage states and place our elected officials and this nation’s people under God’s care, trusting in Him. In other words, pray for them. We may not see a change in their attitudes or beliefs, but we may see one in us. Our hearts may become more palatable to loving our neighbors and our enemies. Our anxieties or frustrations may minimize. Hope may bubble up a bit more in our souls.
Have you ever noticed that a candle doesn’t burn long if the heat of the lighted wick does not begin to melt it? The wick ignites the flame, but it will quickly snuff if the wax around the wick doesn’t start to liquefy. The closer the wax is to the flame’s heat, the quicker it melts.
I have to turn my house plants ever so often or they will grow crookedly. They will repeatedly bend towards the source of light coming into my apartment from the window. Pretty soon, if I don’t rotate them, one half of the plants will be bare. Those leaves on the dark side will shrivel and die. The side aimed toward the light will flourish and grow. However, it will be at a skewed angle, and some of the leaves may be crowded out. It won’t look very healthy because the whole plant hasn’t been exposed the same amount to light.
