A picture paints a thousand words
Notice 1 is all rolled up and used up with nothing more to give or squeeze out of, and the other tube next to it, a brand-new tube of toothpaste. The new tube is ready to go, ready to give, ready to serve you and sacrifice it’s needed internal product or ingredient to help keep your teeth healthy and productive.
What does it mean? Wouldn’t you agree, the tube on the left has most if not all of its ingredients removed or used up? The tube on the right appears to have all of its ingredients inside ready to squeeze out and be used. With that said, what is the picture illustration for? Most of the time pictures are a way to help us think, speak to us about or clarify and illuminate our minds but in a specific way with a specific meaning. What is the meaning of me taking a picture with the two tubes side by side, one empty and one full? I chuckled at the time because it struck me as a bit funny. The example that made me grin came from this…
My wife Tammy and I use the same tube of toothpaste in our master bathroom. Tammy went shopping earlier that day. She bought a new tube of the same brand toothpaste we had been sharing, brought it into the bathroom after unpacking the bags of groceries she had purchased at the store. I looked at that and my first thought was, “We have so much left in the tube we were using. She could have waited to buy the new tube of toothpaste”. The new tube sat on the counter seemingly for weeks while we continued to fold-up the tube on the left with a clothes pin squeezing out every last little bit of the contents of the old, almost used up tube. I don’t know if you are like me, but I do this and have for years, repeating this process with each tube of toothpaste. Just sayin… Must be the cheapskate in me…LOL.
It was in that same moment that I felt Jesus spoke to me in my “knower”, dropping this analogy into my heart about these two tubes. By the mention of my “knower” I mean that place God has put in me and in each of us where at our core we hear God’s voice and know it is Him speaking to us. When this kind of thing occurs it usually means it is an area Jesus is trying to change in me. By change, I mean He highlights this detail asking me to give this further examination, time, prayer and thought. By this method I believe I am changing from the inside out to not only change me but maybe I bring out an “example” for all of us to use in our personal lives. Jesus, many times uses this method to reach into the inner core of me so that I will take and apply this to my everyday life. This I am convinced of, and more persuaded every day, that I am becoming, more and more like Him, useful to Him, His purposes, and His plan for my life here on the earth. It is my understanding that this is the way I think we all learn. Through examples, Through pictures. Through Him speaking directly to us in our “knowers.”
In my recent years I have become more acutely aware of and gotten better at listening to His Holy Spirit as I believe he has asked me to share and write for myself and for you…I have in no way, figured it all out but I am on my way to being more and more like Him.
The tube on the left signifies our lives. I believe this is what the Lord showed me with this picture and for the sake of this analogy. Squeezed out and used up. Let’s face it, after all of our striving, struggle, time day in and day out using our gifts, talents, abilities, knowledge, money and any other efforts or means to get along in this world, we direct these things to loving our kids, living for our families, serving our churches, volunteering for our communities and interests etc.…At the end of all of it I would imagine we are a bit worn out and used up. Wouldn’t you agree?
Every day we use these tools mentioned to make our way. What do we have to show for our striving? Are we just “hollowed-out tubes” with all the “good stuff” squeezed out at the end of the day? The precious life that God Almighty, breathed into each of us we can ill afford to take for granted. The years of time we have are so short and so very precious. If I went back, closed my eyes, and reflected on the recent past, it seems like I’d hear about someone I know who had died and their life here on earth had come to a close. Sometimes it is a famous actor or actress, sports hero, or entertainer but most of the time it is someone I know. Sometimes it is someone I even love, and I know personally. It makes me pause. It makes me reflect.
It makes me stop and think. Another question that impacts me more as I get older, now that I am retired, is “How much impact am I having in this world? How many people do I have an effect on for the Fathers Kingdom? Another way to say that is, “How many people am I leading to Jesus”. How many of those who are watching my life now, are convinced by the way I live my life to follow the one I follow? Are they then motivated to reach out to Him taking a step of faith like I did, so many years ago, making a commitment to follow my Jesus?
If I am clearly transparent and brutally honest, probably not that many. It was God’s plan to win us back to Himself as we had all sinned and fallen short of the mark. Whereas Jesus, left His place in Heaven with the Father, chose to come down to earth, be born of a virgin, living a perfect life without ever sinning, died on a cross, rose again from the grave in three days. This life and His sacrifice, was Almighty God’s plan to bring us back into fellowship with Him. Salvation is a free and open handed gift from God. Our part as his creation is to simply receive this gift, accepting the sacrificial Lamb, Jesus, who paid for all our sins by dying on the cross, shedding His blood, rising from the grave to justify His sacrifice, so we could then be reinstated so to speak with the Father.
The second option of two, is that when our life on earth is over, the Bible says, we will stand before God and be judged. Those who have not accepted His free gift of salvation will then be cast into darkness with Satan and all His angels and demons. In this place there will be great sorrow, absolute regret, and no life but eternal separation from God Almighty forever and ever. Why? Because God is just and can NOT be in the presence of sin.
Simply put, This, is Hell. Hell is NOT gonna be a party as I have heard many say. Now, I am not turning into a fire and brimstone preacher, getting on my soapbox now so let’s all calm down….
he Creation Story tells us that Almighty God breathed into both Adam and Eve the breath of life. This breath gave them the ability to live this life to the fullest in a perfect and simple precious relationship with their Creator. With this life, He only gave them one condition to live by in the Garden of Eden. A simple rule to follow. As we know from the creation story in Genesis, both Adam and Eve were NOT able to keep that requirement God had laid out for them. They both sinned, hiding in the garden, from God their creator. They had discovered they were naked. Their eyes were opened, just as God warned them of. After eating from the tree in the middle of the garden, the fruit of the “Knowledge of Good and Evil”. From that first judgement both Adam and Eve were banished from this “perfect life” having relationship with their Creator God. From God, He breathed into us the breath of life. None of His creation He had created He performed that specific and eternal gift too.
So where do we go from here? Why have I explained, sharing all of this? Why would I go out of the way to explain the judgement coming and each of our destinations at the end of our days? Let’s keep reading, moving forward, keep moving forward…sounds like a tour guide at an amusement park like Disneyland…LOL
Back to the picture of two tubes at the beginning of this writing. I ask myself this each day. Robert, which tube are you? Are you squeezed out from the cares of this life, empty because of the worries from all of your striving? Or, are you like the tube on the right, asking Jesus for more and more of his precious Holy Spirit to fill you? I can hear Jesus, when I am quiet and trying to listen for His direction and leading for the day and the future for my wife and I, “Robert, Are you asking for more and more of My Spirit? Yes Lord, that is what I want each day I live.
He wants to guide us, mold us, free us, be in us to do and be whatever God has asked each of us to be in this world.. but he will NOT force us in any way into this life. We have to want it. Jesus is there. He is calling each of us every moment of each and every day to do His will for His Kingdom. All we have to do is reach out to Him and ask…
So with all that said, all the examples in the Bible of God reaching out to us, offering us salvation, offering us healing, offering us relationship with Him thru Jesus Christ and in the future, a place someday with Him in Heaven, warning us about Hell…writing in His roadmap The Bible, how we should live. There is just one question that needs to be addressed…
“What will we do with the two tubes”? Think about it and listen to your “knower”. It is my hope this has been an encouragement for you.
Blessings,
More next week…