When is a screwdriver not a screwdriver?

I have a number of hand tools that I use for everything from house repairs to car overhauls. I know how to use them as they were designed to be used (although that doesn’t necessarily mean that I am good at using them!).

The flat-blade screwdriver is one of the most basic tools. No moving parts. Even the mechanically disinclined person can recognize and use one. One handle. One business end. It’s hard to mess up with a screwdriver! It’s pretty easy to use it right. But it’s pretty easy to use it wrong.

I have a screwdriver that doesn’t look much like a screwdriver anymore. It once was a nice screwdriver and did a fine job of installing and removing screws. No doubt it was used for just that purpose for quite some time, until…

It’s that “until” that often cause trouble! Yes, as you have imagined, I couldn’t find my chisel so I used my screwdriver instead. It ruined the tip and cracked the handle – it wasn’t a very good chisel and not it isn’t worth anything as a screwdriver!

Most of you don’t care much about this screwdriver, but there is a lesson to be learned about our lives. Some of us know the godly use of our bodies, minds, and spirits. It’s pretty straightforward and not that hard to understand. Yet we use our bodies to do things for which they were not designed. God has said not to do things that harm us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. He has designed us to do things that are good, useful, and fulfilling. And we do those good things until…

There is an endless list of reasons why people use a screwdriver for a chisel – I mean, choose to use their bodies to do evil rather than righteousness. And then we damage ourselves, even making ourselves unable to do the things for which God designed us! We look at ourselves and realize that we aren’t good at what the world wants us to do or at what God wants us to do.

Old screwdrivers get thrown away and replaced, but God cares about us and doesn’t do that. The good news is that through forgiveness in Christ, God can re-create us – making us “conformed to the image of His Son” (Ro 89:29). We can start over, becoming new again. Feel like your life is messed up, broken, and that you are useless? Jesus came, died, and rose to assure you that all this can change!

dd