When i was 8 years old my thumb got smashed in a door. really smashed. over the next weeks my thumbnail proceeded to go through all shades of bruising and eventually, to my dismay, it fell off.
now this whole, smashing my finger in the door thing was not at all the worst pain that i have felt, in comparison to the various breaks and sprains and surgeries i've had over the years, the smash was minor, but what it did was major.
you better believe that after that one smashed thumb, my awareness of hand placement on doors and door frames was raised exponentially. Since then i can only think of two other times that i have smashed my finger(s) in a door...and its been 13 years.
well one of those times was just the other day. i was leaving my house to run some errands and obviously rather than grabbing the door knob to shut the door i decided that it would be better to just grab the door itself. this resulted in my not being able to get my hand out of the way fast enough and smashing my pointer finger, hard, between the door and frame. the moral is that i am an idiot. do not do as i do. there is a good reason that some genius invented door knobs, but i didn't get the memo.
the point to all of this is that my smashed finger got me thinking. when i was just a kid, something as small as the pain of a smashed finger drastically changed my actions. i stopped placing my hands in a position where they could potentially be injured. to dramatize it, that smashed finger changed my life, but it wasn't even a big deal.
then i thought about Jesus.
once we are justified and in the midst of progressive sanctification Jesus doesn't want every refinement of our sin to cause us to hit rock bottom. Sure, we are going to sin, cause we're foolish and selfish and prideful, but Jesus is trying to pull us further up and further in. He is a gentle Savior who loves us and doesn't want us to suffer from severed limbs as we travel the straight and narrow, but He has to mold us somehow.
In my social psychology class my professor always talks about how the best form of discipline is moderate, enough to make an impact but not enough to cause rebellion or terror.
This is just like a smashed finger. As we strive to live for Jesus in a world of muck, we are sometimes going to chose our nature rather than our Savior. And Jesus in His great graces allows us to smash our fingers in our sin and walk away virtually unscathed, but with a new perspective of ourselves and His Deliverance. Jesus is made great through smashed fingers because we get to see His grace in the process of making us look less like us and more like Him. from a human perspective, we sin we should be instantly condemned, or at least badly maimed. But instead Jesus covers the sin and allows us to feel the sting without the lasting pain.
The way that Jesus does this the most in my life is by allowing me to be embarrassed by my sin, especially by my pride. He knows me well enough to know that i don't respond well to criticism, but i do respond well to humiliation. nothing makes me want to crawl under a rock and die like being humiliated. Therefore Jesus lets me think i'm all that for just a little bit and then BAM the door slams right on the fingers of my pride. and it stings. a lot. the sting is bad enough to drive me back to Him, and significant enough to cause me to never want to act in that particular area of my pride ever again. Yet it is never bad enough to make me grovel in pity and become more selfish, or become angry from the pain. The smashed finger just sends me running back to Jesus, with a moderately painful lesson learned.
Jesus is really good like that. He has been so kind to allow me to learn from little mistakes and shortcomings, rather than hitting rock bottom. But the job is ours, we must be willing to learn from the little things in order to avoid the big things. We are called to flee from temptation, not constantly flirt with the boundaries, because the farther you push the boundary of sin, will only result in being further away from the Healer, leading to a painful journey back. Jesus is waiting with open arms to comfort us either way, but how much better is to spend a day healing a smashed finger, than spend weeks or months or years healing a broken back? And how much more beautiful to have just the memory of pain rather than the scars to remind us of everyday of our sin? Certainly we all have scars from our lives before Christ, but once we have received our Savior, why continue inflicting such pain? Jesus is ready to teach and heal and renew. He is ready to refine, but we must be willing to suffer the temporary sting for the eternal joy of being more like Him.
next time Jesus let's a particular door close on your fingers, let it be the last time. Feel the sting. Learn the lesson. Look to Him. He is good.
abbie.
