Thursday, November 06, 2008

An Erasable Message Board of Truth

On a recent trip to Accra, Ghana, I snapped this pic by the side of the road. While this is a truly powerful message that rightly deserves it's place, the message itself is not what profoundly struck me. Here's what did...

First of all, this is NOT a church sign as you might suspect. This is a sign out in front of a lumberyard! In my home culture, this sign would only find it's place outside of a place of worship, put there for passersby to read and soak up in conjunction with the insanity of everyday life. I am a huge fan of truth in the midst of chaos, but what do these church signs that read, "No Jesus, No Peace, Know Jesus, Know Peace" really accomplish for the kingdom? Not much, at least not in my humble opinion. They are more for the church goer than the pagan neighbor type. The fact that a regular business venture would put this out in front of it's cedar and mahogany planks is foreign to my cultural norms...

The 2nd and most profound thing that I noticed did not come to me immediately, but only after driving past the exact same sign 3 days later. You see, this message is written on an erasable chalkboard, and when I passed by again after my time in Accra, it displayed an entirely different message of truth about God. This next time it said, "God is Eternal".

I hope that my life is like an erasable message board of truth. I hope that everyday, the people I encounter in my life and ministry in Africa can see a new truth about God just by observing the way I live my life. May it be so for all of us; may our lives simply and distinctly reflect truths about our God, our Savior and His Spirit that dwells in us...

1 comment:

Miss G said...

really cool thought. what are people seeing in us each and everytime they encounter us? Kelly