A stranger came by the other day with an offer that set me to thinking. He wanted to buy the old red barn that sits out by the highway. He was a city type. I could tell by his clothes and the way he talked. That old red barn? I told him I thought he was crazy.
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. I told him he sure had a funny idea of beauty. Sure, it was a right handsome building in its day. But there’s been a lot of winters pass with their snow and ice and howling wind. Not to mention the summer’s heat. Why, I said, the summers sun’s beat down on that ole’ barn till all the paint is faded, and the wood has turned a silver gray. Now the old thing leans a good deal, looking kind of tired.
Yet, that fellow called it “Beautiful!”
That set me to thinking. I walked out to the field with him and just stood there, gazing at that old barn. The stranger said he planned to use the lumber to line the walls of his den in a new country ranch 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 and nothing else, can produce that kind of 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. But the Good Lord knows what He’s doing. And He watches as our souls are beautified by His love and grace.
They took the old barn down today and hauled it away. And like the seasoned wood will be used to beautify someone else’s life, the Lord will use that same seasoned life someday to bring a little bit more beauty into Heaven.
Milton Wilson (thoughts, from notes sent to me by friends in Missouri.)
“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. Psalm139:14