toothpaste and shaving foam ... or water?

Standout Verses - 2 Samuel 14:14
Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him.

We all know the illustration of trying to get toothpaste back in a tube, or shaving foam back into the can, because they are so over-done. In the traditional form of the story the analogy is most often to what we say; we can’t take our words back. The paste and foam sit there looking out of place on the children’s worker’s prop as evidence of potential sin, encouraging us to be more guarded in future. If the worker were to use a glass of water in the analogy what would happen. Well, with a spoon and a cloth much of the water could be gathered up again but most likely there would be some dirt brought back into the glass and there would be some water and there would be some left on the ground. If much care was taken then we could get very close to the appearance of a perfect job - near clear water and the glass as good as full. But this would only be an illusion.

We are people of dust and stains …



When our lives become problematic and are spilt out on the ground we find a way to pick ourselves up and patch ourselves together, and often we don’t involve God in that process. Millions of non-Christians and Christians alike live pieced together lives without God, displaying for all the world the illusion of togetherness. But if we scratch the surface, if we investigate further, we find that their lives contain the dirt of daily living, inadvertently gathered up as they hold themselves together: contaminated with the unhealed pain, uncontrolled desire and purposeless striving. We would see that they have not managed to pick up all that dropped and around them are scattered the discarded drops of life they could not reclaim. The struggles of life have left them damaged. Often though, to the outside observer, it looks as if the glass has been successfully and purely refilled.
The illustration shows us that this gathering up of life is not something that we can adequately do on our own: the truth we find here is that our lives cannot be “gathered up” by ourselves. They can only be pieced together and held together by God. He will not sweep away what we spill, nor will he contaminate what he brings together. He will devise a way.

Lord, we can only be made whole by a miracle. It is beyond the earthly and humanly possible, but I praise you that it is not beyond your divine will.
Piece me together.
Keep me together.
May I never again be separated from you.