Okay, I’m a perfectionist. I have been since my earliest childhood. I’m very organized and know where everything is. It’s just the way I am wired. But we are at that time of year that can really drive me crazy. Because those Christmas lights come out and I just can’t stand to see strings fail to light. In fact, we have a wonderful 7-1/2’ tree that we always put up in the corner of our hearth room. It is one of several trees that we set up each Christmas and we absolutely loves this tree.
So when this pre-lit tree started to lose strands, I kept throwing strings of white lights in the tree to avoid having to change the lights out. This one is just so nice and fits into the space just right. So after Christmas last year, I bought strings of lights (LED) to re-string our beloved tree during this year. Every so often, Andrew and/or I would head down to my workshop and work to pull off the old lights. It ended up being a labor of love.
Several weeks ago we finished the task and we are now starting the process of setting up early for Christmas this year. Before you condemn us, Thanksgiving is late this year and we have a number of doc appointments during the next month. Christmas is Janet’s favorite time of year and our grandsons, as well as our own children, share the load of turning our home into a winter wonderland. So we decided to start early…
Anyway, these new lights have an option of switching between colored or changing the setting to white. I figured we wanted these options since we were redoing everything. I was leaning toward the color setting and by the time we got done decorating everything, Janet asked me to try the white setting. I was horrified to see that there was one string on the tree that was a different shade of white – you know, warm white rather than cool white. I read the box labels and it was clear that somewhere along the line, a box slipped through that contained the wrong lights.
I couldn’t believe it. We have worked for a year to remove all the old lights, secure the new strands and now, when everything is up and running, one ridiculous string doesn’t match the rest of the tree. To make matters worse, the store is discontinuing the line of lights and so I can’t get any more lights to match the rest of the tree. Can you tell that I just hate it when there are issues with lights!
And then I remembered several events from earlier in my life. Like the time that Mom and Dad wanted to buy me a chess set of hand carved water buffalo horn (you can’t get those anymore) and the two kings didn’t match. Marshall Field’s sold them the set at a deep discount because of the “defect.” I still have it to this day. But I learned, especially when these sets were made by hand, that they must contain a “mistake.” It is the way that the craftsman acknowledges that nothing is “perfect” except God. When we bought several Oriental rugs many years ago, the same thing happened. I thought several rugs were defective but the weavers of the rugs incorporated a “mistake” in the finished product because nothing is perfect except God.
Every so often I run across other items that seem to be “defective” but upon closer examination, these anomalies are on purpose out of respect for God. My brother Doug has experienced the same things multiple times in his travels around the world. It seems to be a universal theme.
So the question became, “What we should do with our beloved tree?” Every reasonable avenue seemed to be closed. No more lights that match… Endless hours of work to get it where it is. The disappointment of lighting the finished product and… the realization that it wasn’t perfect… But I do want to stress that I never considered going out and buying a new tree… Nope, we wanted this one for sure.
Suddenly, it came to me… And Janet thought it was a perfect solution. You know what we are doing with the tree? Absolutely nothing! That’s because in the most cozy room of our home, where we spend hours of time each day, we are constantly reminded that only God is perfect. And what could be more fitting for this time of year when we are about the celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus! So the one strand of warm white bulbs will continue to remind us of our human imperfection – but that we serve a perfect God, the perfect lamb.
Our verse tonight is from the Psalms. The psalmist tells us, in no uncertain terms, that God is perfect. We read in Psalm 18:30, “As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.” My encouragement this evening is that we do serve a perfect God. We can depend on Him, trust Him, find refuge in Him and enter into deep relationship with Him. My prayer is that we will be okay with recognizing our imperfections. In the scheme of things, it is much more important for us to serve a perfect God than for us to lament the fact that we aren’t perfect ourselves. This has been a tough lesson for me to learn. So, we now have a memorable addition to our Christmas decorations. Our favorite tree is a constant reminder that only God is perfect! How fitting at Christmas! Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…