The Old Barn

 

When I was pastoring in Union, SC a gentleman came by the one day with an offer for a friend of mine. He wanted to buy an old barn that he owned that sits out by the highway. My friend told him right off he was crazy. He was a city type, you could tell by his clothes, his car, his hands, and the way he talked. He said he was driving by and saw that beautiful barn sitting out in the tall grass and wanted to know if it was for sale. My friend told him he had a funny idea of beauty.  Sure, it was a handsome building in its day. But then, there's been a lot of winters pass with their rains, ice, and howling winds. The summer sun's beat down on that old barn till all the paint's gone, and the wood has turned silver gray. Now the old building leans a good deal, looking kind of tired. Yet, that out of towner called it beautiful.

I drove to the field and just stood there, gazing at his old barn. The stranger said he planned to use the lumber to line the walls of his den in a new country home he's building down the road. He said you couldn't get paint that beautiful. Only years of standing in the weather, bearing the storms and scorching sun, only that can produce beautiful barn wood. It came to me then. We're a lot like that, you and I. Only it's on the inside that the beauty grows with us. Sure we turn silver gray too and lean a bit more than we did when we were young and full of sap. But the Good Lord knows what He's doing. And as the years pass He's busy using the hard wealth of our lives, the dry spells and the stormy seasons, to do a job of beautifying our souls that nothing else can produce. And to think how often folks complain because they want life easy.

They took my friends old barn down before I moved to Simpsonville and hauled it away to beautify the rich man's house. And someday you and I'll be hauled off to Heaven and I suspect we'll be more beautiful then for the seasons we've been through here-and just maybe even add a bit of beauty to our Father's house. Just trust that God has you exactly where you are meant to be today and will use every lesson of life to prepare you for what He has in eternity.