Yesterday was a peel-the-paint-off-the-paint-tray kind of day...

Yesterday was a peel-the-paint-off-the-paint-tray kind of day. I had other things to do, other more pressing, important, eternal life kinds of things I could be doing but I was parked on the stenciled floors of the building peeling paint off a paint tray. No one ever needs to peel the paint off a paint tray. It works just as well with dried paint on it or off of it, but, Oh!, the gratification that a freshly peeled paint tray gives you. When a couple friends and co-laborers came to help me a little while later, they asked, “What’d you do today?” I replied, “I got some work done this morning, and then (with a smile plastered on my face) I peeled the paint off that paint tray!"

I have a deep need to check boxes and complete tasks. However, in our line of work, the boxes never get checked. (I’m hearing all the ministers reading this shouting, “Amen!” right now.) We only want to reach a whole county with the love of Jesus. We only want Chi Alpha on every campus in Utah. We only want every student to be a lifelong follower of Jesus. No biggie.

Maybe I’m pondering this because Daran is all the way across the country in our old stomping grounds of Warrenton, Virginia. He preached three services to 700 people in a building that was a checkbox for a friend of ours.

In 2007, we were associate pastors at Bridge Community Church with a dear friend, Pastor Mark Smith. Pastor Mark only wanted a thriving church in a permanent location in Warrenton, Virginia. When we arrived on the scene, our church was housed in a rented private school. We had about 200 people attending at the time, but the dream was a tangible presence to Pastor Mark. How difficult and long-suffering the road would be to this checkbox, no one knew at the time.

When Daran preached yesterday in this “checkbox” building, Pastor Mark was not in attendance. He watched from a box seat in Heaven. He had no idea that he would only complete the first leg in the race. He would never check the box. He would never see the fruition of the promise. Someone else would cut the ribbon.

There were some that probably “get it” more than others in attendance yesterday-his sweet wife, Robin and his amazing kiddos who suffered the greatest loss by losing their daddy and sweetheart at the end of the first leg of the race. They get the enormity of stepping into that building every Sunday. They understand the cost way more than others. The cost was not just in dollars and cents for them.

Every leg of the race is taxing, but crossing the finish line is crazy invigorating. So for those of us running the first leg in the race, with no finish line in sight, every now and then, we need a peel-the-paint-off-the-paint-tray kind of day, just so we can put pen to paper and checkbox something. We may not be the ones who cut the ribbon on the promise. We just have to keep running and trusting, pausing and peeling, jogging and crying, pausing and peeling, crawling and pleading, and finishing whatever leg of the race we are called to.