The Driftwood Exchange

The Driftwood Exchange

12/24/11

It is amazing to me how under a person’s hands that is skilled in a trade can alter the looks of an object.  This skilled person can mold and reshape the object into a new piece of artwork that hardly resembles the beginning object.  The new object may still have some scars and dents in its frame but the finished product has smoothed over those infirmities and created a new surface that shines outwards into the atmosphere.  Our lives can be represented by these objects which are battered and scarred by everyday life and the beatings that we take not only physically but mentally and spiritually as well.  But there is someone that can shape us to our original form and then restore us to an object of great desire.

The example I am going to use for this message is called driftwood.  Driftwood is wood that has been floating in the ocean, river, or sea that has washed up on the shore.  The condition of the wood is usually horrible and it really does not look good at all and most likely has an odor along with it.  It can appear as just a small piece that finds land or it can arrive in a large mass of other pieces that can clog up a beach.  Whatever the scene, the pieces of wood usually just lie there until someone does something with them. 

In its present condition there is not much that can be done with these pieces of wood that come to shore.  Yes, small pieces can be used as paperweights on a desktop or some slightly larger pieces might be used as a bookend.  You cannot burn the wood since it contains many chemicals that could harm the lungs and it would cost a good chunk of money to have the large mass of wood transferred to a landfill, so most of the time the wood just sits in the place that it washes ashore.

My first encounter with driftwood came when I lived in Salinas, California.  Salinas is a medium sized city in central California close to the sea.  The valley is a beautiful site to see with all of the farming that goes on for almost the entire year.  The few surrounding mountains house many state and federal lands which anyone can hike through, camp or go up and look out across the valley floor.  And on some clear days on these mountains actually see the bay that lies just on the other side of the mountains.

The beaches of the bay are lined with these pieces of driftwood, which have washed ashore from various origins.  They actually have a name for each origin of wood, flotsam is the name given to driftwood that has been tossed into the water from the shore.  Each piece of driftwood has a specific and separate origin but all the pieces in this area have come to a destined resting place.  The origin of the wood and the place that it served can have a toll on the wood but when found by others it makes them wonder why it was tossed aside never to be looked upon again by that person again; or maybe that person who finds it wonders what other things might have been attached to the piece of wood while it was in the water.  The amount of time the wood spent in the water varies for each piece of wood, the route in which it arrived at its shoreline destination and many other conditions it encountered, just think of the stories that these pieces of driftwood could tell of their journeys if that were possible.

I remember going over to one of the church member’s houses for dinner one evening.  The house was located in a nice neighborhood and not too far from where we lived.  The couple’s son and I had been friends for a while and we enjoyed each other’s company but neither family had been over to the others house, so this was going to be a first for both families.  We were greeted at the door and led into the house with a friendly welcome.  Dinner would be ready in a few minutes so we were escorted to the family room to sit and talk for a bit. 

As I walked into the room I noticed that the majority of the furniture had been made with wood, not the “normal” wood as most furniture is made from but of driftwood.  I rushed over to sit in the chair that looked like a tree stump.  I could not take my eyes off its design and how it was shaped into the form of a chair.  My dad began to ask questions of where these people purchased the furniture and how it was made.  I really did not listen to that conversation since I now focused on the driftwood coffee table and other pieces of driftwood furniture in the room.  I continued my search of the room and found that almost every piece of furniture in the room was made from driftwood and how it created the unique atmosphere in the room, in other words we had nothing like this at home J

Each of these journeys would provide many tales of hurtful and sometimes even destructive conditions that would make the most stable person cringe as they were told.  Indescribable wave upon wave of environmental challenges probably would define the trip to the shore.  And then once on the shore, the sun would beat down upon the piece of wood and dry it out to an extent that it could even change its shape.  All of these conditions can be considered a normal journey for a thrown out piece of wood and how many of us would walk by this piece of wood and not do anything about the situation except talk about its position on the shore.

Let us now do some comparisons with this piece of driftwood and our lives.  From the time we can notice the world that surrounds us we have the capability of falling into its snare.  This snare may seem like a small inconvenience at first but we soon realize that these affairs are more cumbersome to our existence than we believed.  Our ways become more difficult to navigate through and our paths seem tighter and tighter.  Demands are placed upon us that stress our lives to an extent that we believe that there is no immediate hope for us to survive and that we are stuck in a permanent and ever deepening rut. 

We eventually begin to ignore these worldly bombardments and accept our surroundings as a normal part of our existence.  When this stage enters into our lives it simultaneously numbs us to the effects that these motions are having inside our being.  We get to the point where we do not care about our surroundings and allow our minds to ignore the warning signals that our spirit places in us.  Our spirit is not being heard at this point and our emotions begin to take control of our methods of resistance.  This is a sign that we are sinking fast and the while continuing to ignore our surroundings and letting the situation to get worse. 

What adds insult to injury is that eventually we begin to believe that the problems that are bombarding us are actually good for our lives and that it makes us stronger when we encounter them.  We do not recognize that in these conditions that we are functioning in are actually attaching themselves to our spirit and clogging it up with unnecessary garbage that it becomes impossible for us to even recognize our own inner self.  We then begin to understand the ways of the world and to accept them as truth blindly following every new whim that comes around the corner.

Then it happens, the world drops us like a hot potato after it has taken every ounce of life within our lives.  We now notice that our thinking and believing have become hardened by our experiences and that all faith in the world has deserted us.  The world walks away and does not even look back to see the damage that it has created in us for the world knows that it was we who invited it into our lives and it has no claim of responsibility of our actions.  This is the time in our lives that we realize the path that we have chosen and now reality sets in as we hit the shore.

As the sun beats down on our worldly hardened lives, we begin to wonder where things went wrong and why we have been left alone to die.  We sit and contemplate the things that were done to us and plot the revenge that we can inflict on others so that we can feel better about our recent journey.  At this time our minds revert back to simpler days and better times in our lives.  We wonder what the secret was to these times and begin trying to figure out how to return to those good times.  The only problem is we soon realize that that scenario is impossible to recover and we must now try to organize a future for our lives.  Then this is the time when God walks up to you and asks…so, what is a beautiful person with an unspeakable amount of purpose like you doing on a dirty shore like this?

At this moment we recognize God and what He is saying to our lives.  We now have the choice to accept His rebuilding program or to continue on lay around in the sun.  For those that chose to lie in the sun, they will continue to be bombarded with the elements of their surroundings with no shelter from their constant attacks.  These people will eventually be broken into so many small pieces that their existence will be shattered and will be deemed worthless to society.  Even then they still have a choice to take the other road; which brings me to the other road….

The person who chooses to allow God into their lives and to begin a relationship with Him will find that the first thing that happens is that He picks you up off of the shore and carries you to a place where you are safe from the elements.  He then lets you sit in His presence for a while and relax while He begins to teach you of some things about world.  Things that you immediately remember but this time He gives you information that will allow you to understand the harm that these conditions do to your life.  He then talks to you about how precious your life is and what meaning it has for others, what kind of purpose He has in store for you.  You ask Him how do I know that you love me.  God continues by saying that He has provided you a guide book that explains every imaginable worldly attack, including spiritual attack, so that you may be prepared when the time arises.  God then asks if you are willing to accept Him and His relationship with you and the restoration process begins.

God does not hide the fact that the restoration process is going to be painful.  He sees all of the damage that has been done to our lives and He knows exactly how much to chip and chizzle away for us to become viable again.  He cannot complete this process all at once, He does it slowly and methodically all while teaching us how not to get lured into this situation again.  We begin to see just how much junk we have allowed into our lives and as God throws it away we feel the release of that burden.  Yes, this portion of the process hurts since the parts that are being taken are from within our being and are things that we have incorporated into our daily lives which we believe were necessary to function normally.  Yes, the affected area is sore for a while as our life begins to mend itself around the wounds and empty places.  Yes, it stinks because we now can smell of the dirt, mud and trash that we voluntarily allowed to jump aboard during our journey.  And yes, we can now begin to see a cleaner and healthier form beginning to appear as the process continues.

Where is your life heading?  Is it floating in the waters of the world and allowing everything and everybody to jump on board as you travel along the road of life or have you already hit the shore and allowing the sun to burn you to a crisp and letting further damage come into your life?  There is help if you chose to accept Him.  He will blow your mind in directions that you have never encountered before and your entire existence will be changed forever.  The process of healing will begin immediately and your new self will emerge in His likeness.  A likeness with purpose and direction, beaming with happiness and satisfaction, a life that is filled with…life.  Come on driftwood, there is a skilled holy being that is waiting to turn you into a priceless piece of artwork that is unique to all others around you.

DLB