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The Pilot Who Didn't Panic |
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Themes God's Word is the Only Reliable Guide THE POLKA-DOT MAN The polka-dot man's house and yard were a mess. There was a greenhouse without windows. There were a few garden plots, but no vegetables or flowers had ever grown in them. The bushes that were supposed to make a hedge, had never been pruned. Fences tilted at crazy angles. A dark-green, rusted Pontiac sat in the driveway. If you looked quickly, you might have thought polka-dot man was lazy. Quite the opposite. No lazy man could have created such a mess. Every Saturday morning he would be off in his van to buy supplies for that weekend's project. Polka-dot man was Home Depot's dream - a man who started everything and finished nothing. The weekend he started working on a project was the same weekend he finished working on it. Whatever stage it was at on Sunday afternoon, was how it stayed forever. He never picked it up again. All of this might not have been too bad if he had not decided to paint his house. The house was dark green. It was badly in need of paint. He scraped off the chipped, bubbled, and crazed paint. Then he took white primer and touched up the newly bare spots. From the street, the house looked as if it was covered with polka-dots. Of course, many houses look like that for a few days. But polka-dot man never finished his projects. For quite a number of years, his house was covered with these polka-dots, which is how he came by his name. Polka-dot man was the greatest person I ever knew for starting things and leaving them unfinished. Most of us, though, have something of polka-dot man in us. Look around your room - how many projects can you find that you started and never finished? That is not how God works. The lesson of our story of the blind man of Bethsaida is that God finishes what He starts. Sometimes unsaved people mock Christians. "If that's how a Christian behaves," they say, "who would want to be one?" But they are wrong, and here's why. When God is finished working on a Christian, He takes him home to Heaven. So every Christian you see is not finished. God has more work to do on him. But God will finish his work. That's why it is a mistake to look at Christians, and not at Christ Himself. Almost 2000 years ago, the Lord Jesus went to the cross and started the work of providing salvation. After six hours on the cross, Jesus cried with a loud voice, "IT IS FINISHED" (John 19:30). He left Heaven to do that work, and He did not return until it was done. Someday soon He will come back to take all Christians home to Heaven. Have you trusted this one who finished the work FOR sinners by taking the penalty for sins? Has He begun the work IN you that He will finish when He takes Christians home to Heaven?
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Jim Batterton