The List

He never should have asked me to keep the list. I dread showing it to him. He’s a skilled builder, a fine friend. And he has built us a great house. But the house has a few mistakes. Until this week I didn’t see them. But, then again, until this week I didn’t live in the house. Once you take up residence in a place, you see every flaw. “Make a list of them”, he told me. “If you say so” I thought. A bedroom door wont lock. The storage room window is cracked. Someone forgot to install towel racks in the girls’ bathroom. Someone else forgot the knobs to the den door. As i said, the house is nice, but the list is growing. Looking at the list of the builders’s mistakes caused me to think about God making a list of mine. After all, hasn’t he taken up residence in my heart? And if I see flaws in my house, imagine what he sees in me. Oh, dare we think of the list he could compile? The door hinges to the prayer room have grown rusty from underuse. The stove called jealousy is overheating. The attic floor is weighted with too many regrets. The cellar is cluttered with too many secrets. And wont someone raise the shutter and chase the pessimism out of this heart? The list of our weaknesses. Would you like anyone to see yours? Would you like them made public? – excerpts from ‘He chose the nails’ by Max Lucado