A little while ago I took the kids to a nearby railroad track to show them how cool it is to place pennies on the tracks, wait for trains to run over them, and then search to find the flattened coins to discover their new shapes and looks. They didn’t seem to have near as much fun as I did, though they did have to endure hearing many lessons about how they should never do that without their daddy and how dangerous playing around trains and railroad tracks really is. Of course we were super-safe the whole time and never even saw a train while we were on our adventure. But we know one came by because when we came back to look for our pennies they were all flattened and all bent out of shape.
Seeing those beautiful, shiny new pennies get changed into distorted, smeared pieces of metal made me think. The train-flattened pennies were no longer useful as money and were not able to be used for their intended purposes. They were transformed into just odd looking pieces of metal shaped by their surroundings (in this case a train and a railroad track). Still made up of the same things, but changed from what their maker had created.
Aren’t we sometimes the same way? As Christians, ” we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph, 2:10). But sometimes we let our surroundings shape us too, don’t we? We need to be reminded that God said, “Be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44). We need to remember to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2).
Just as surely as those pennies were shaped and molded by the world around them, we too will be shaped by our surroundings. Choose friends carefully (1 Cor. 15:33). Use time wisely (Eph. 5:16). Examine your life (1 Cor. 10:12). Pray for wisdom (James 1:5). And, above all, praise God (Psalm 150:1).
No matter how bent out of shape or worthless we may think that we are, our Lord is able to restore us and make us new again. God is able to take us in whatever shape we’re in, and make us useful for Him. Let’s read Isaiah chapter 59 or Romans 12 and continually turn our lives over to God. He wants us to. For, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
