A Touch of Paint
(Reflection - January 1999)

He was my spiritual father and it is only now we realize how much attention he gave to our spiritual as well as our natural needs. During the difficult years when my parents, like thousands of other families, were struggling to keep a home together, every Christmas he saw to it that we all received a brand new half crown. Throughout the year, I know he gave my father help with the instruction that the left hand should not know what the right hand was doing.

In my teens his caring eyes saw the possibility of a young man wasting the gifts he had been given, including the opportunity for eternal life. He sought occasion to make the point and found it when he employed me to paint his house. A simple task, I thought. Brush in hand, I made a big dip into the bucket and then applied the brush to the house.

Watching over my shoulder, he said, "Learn the first lesson" as he saw most of the paint running down the handle onto my hands. "Never waste anything -- even paint. Now dip the brush again into the bucket only half way this time and work the paint out on the wall until you have used it all up." I have never forgotten that lesson.

On the eve of leaving England to reside in Canada, my spiritual father invited me to his house for one more chat. We sat in his library and answered the barrage of questions, "What do you intend to do with your life once you reach the new country?" and others like it. Finally departing, when I would not see him again in this life, he invited me to take any book out of his large library. I chose a leather bound copy of Christadelphian Answers by Bro. Jannaway written in 1920. Reaching home I thumbed through its pages to discover an extra bonus, a personal letter from Bro. C.C. Walker to Bro. Jannaway. I recalled again the firm advice of my spiritual father and the paint brush -- here were three pillars of the house of God who in their lifetime never wasted anything, especially the hours of a day that was given. Lives were not wasted on those shallow and ephemeral things.

Let us be honest with God -- we waste an awful lot of paint in looking after the house we live in. What fullness of life was found with Jesus. He was always reaching out to collect the moments that would pass him by. Even in the moment of fatigue by the well of water his mind was active. A scene would be captured in his memory and turned into a parable that others might find the joy of a life wholly given to his Father above.

Could those idle moments in our lives be better spent? With the tiredness of these bodies we sometimes sit, but what comes into our minds? There could be prayers for our generation, for those who no longer find the company of Jesus pleasant, for those we have trouble getting along with.

A dear friend and brother in Christ once told me he would rest on his pillow at night waiting for sweet sleep and think about Christ. On most occasions he would wake up with the same thoughts. What better company could we ask for in the darkness of the night?

When looking in the mirror caring for our natural appearance, how useful to be reading and memorizing the verse pasted on the side that our spiritual appearance might be more beautiful. It only takes a few minutes. Salvage them out of the waste bin of the day; drop a card to a young brother thanking him for his exhortation or Bible class talk.

The words of the old hymn come to mind: "Life is the time to serve the Lord, to do His will, to learn His word." If this is our course in life, when we stand before the judge, accepted of him for the kingdom, may it be that we won’t have any paint on our hands.

Horace Macpherson

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