Peeling Back the Layers

Yesterday I helped a friend do some things around her house in order to get it ready to put on the market. Her mother and I spent part of the time scraping wallpaper in the hallway. Our routine was thus: run the paper tiger across the wallpaper to score it, spray the wallpaper glue dissolver and allow it to soak in, then scape away with our trusty putty knives.

It seemed easy at first, but we soon discovered that there wasn't just one layer of wallpaper on the wall, but several. The first couple of layers came off without too much effort, but the third one took a little more work. We often had to use the paper tiger and dissolver on each layer, which obviously took more time than we bargained for, not to mention made more of a mess.

I was thinking of how we are made up of many layers, emotionally and behaviorally speaking. Sometimes in order to get rid of certain layers that don't belong, God has to use some tough methods to scrape through to the layer beneath. Sometimes I think I've got myself all figured out, think I've hit the nail on the head of why I act a certain way or have a certain attitude--then I find that there's yet another layer lying underneath, and the scraping process has to continue. And scraping and peeling away at layers is not a pleasant feeling. It's painful, and sometimes brings to the surface painful memories or incidents long buried.

But when we allow God to scrape and remove those layers of hurt, anger, bitterness, resentment, distrust, abandonment, or other attitudes, then He is able to have a clean surface to work with. Then He can begin the task of "redecorating" our lives into the masterpieces that He has planned for us.