"I Pulled a Schlichting"

Ever read a Schlichting blog? He has this uncanny ability to take something completely normal, whether its a quote from a puritan or a small child, and completely mold and shape the story into the gospel. Today I am going to attempt something of the same.

Last night we arrived home from our staff retreat in Blue Ridge, GA. The whole week Mike and Matt where debating who’s vehicle was the better one. In my mind that is like debating with Rain Man how many minutes there are in a year, but Mike perpetually kept up with the debate (I can’t say I wasn’t impressed). In the midst of their debate I realized that my car or truck doesn't even deserve to be in the discussion, but Matt forcefully reminded me that I take horrible care of my vehicles. If you know me well at all you know that is the truth, & the honest to God reason is that it is expensive.... and I am lazy... But anywho, with guilt and embaressment as my motivation I run to AutoZone when I get home and I buy 5qts of oil, an oil filter, an air-conditioning blower, a set of brakes for lindsay’s car, 2 gallons of anti-freeze, and some armor-all wipes.

I take both of our cars to Lindsay’s parents house, where her more then a man father (I have seen him use his hand to hammer a nail into some furniture... I am not lying!) keeps all of his tools. With his help we replace my air-conditioning motor, flush my radiator system, and change Lindsay’s brake pads. By the end of the night I had slammed my knuckles into enough metal parts to make me curse, my hands were covered in brake dust, and my shirt was soaked in a 50/50 ratio of old radiator fluid and water (Oh and yesterday’s heat index was 110). So to say the least I was dirty, smelly, tired, and cut-up....

When I got home later that night I looked at my hands and realized how filthy they were. In my line of work you don’t get to go home with dirty hands too often, but it made me think about how it was proof that I had worked really hard that day. Then for some reason my mind pulled a Schlichting and I thought about Christ’s hands after His “day of work.”
He could look at his hands after that and know that he had done his job well
All of those who were responsible for his death tried to clean their hands from sin, by giving Christ over to be slaughtered like a lamb. But Christ bore our sins on his hands and his feet, dying the death we deserve, adopting us as children, reconciling us to him, redeeming us from our former identity, and atoning for OUR sins. When his work was finished, he and the apostles were able to look at his hands and feet and see the dirty, despicable, beautiful, scandalous, grace centered work he did on the cross.

Schlichting: To take a normal mundane incident and turn it into an illustration of the Gospel...