Upside Down And Backwards

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rom December of 1988 through June of 1990, my brother, Kevin, and I were busy converting an old office building into our home.    I believed this process would require no more than six months.  Kevin, however, was not so enthusiastic about this deadline.  He knew it would be several months, perhaps more than a year, before the house was ready.

There was no heating system in the house, the wiring was too old, the walls needed to be replaced, the floors needed to be refinished, the building needed a new roof, and the basement needed to be waterproofed. In addition, the house also required several cosmetic repairs to complete the restoration.  New paint (inside and out), new wall paper, new flooring in the kitchen, new cabinet tops, etc. were needed to add the finishing touches  we wanted the house to have.   

One afternoon, the familiar sound of the miter saw met me as I got out of my car.  In the living room, Kevin was hunched over the saw, working with a long piece of crown molding.   To my horror, he had the piece of molding upside down!!  I quickly pointed this out, but he just kept on working.    

He started the saw, made the cut, climbed the ladder, turned the molding over, and put it into place.  It was a perfect fit!  After driving the last nail, he slowly descended the ladder and spoke with me.  "I wasn't ignoring you," he said, "but the cut needed to be precise.  Molding has to be cut upside down and backwards. The cut required my full concentration if it was to be perfect."

The prophet Isaiah understood the construction process.  He knew that sometimes God's methods of building look awkward to us; and sometimes they appear to be anything but practical.  We often find ourselves on God's worktable.  There is always something to be improved upon, removed, added, sanded, blasted, or chiseled.   

Life sometimes throws us a curve and in order to be molded, God must place us upside down and cut us backwards.  From our perspective, this is the most unnatural and contorted position possible.  We don't understand how in the world he could possibly use us like this.  There seems to be no method to this madness.  "Surely, this can't be from God," we think, "He always does things in a logical manner. Upside down and backwards just isn't the way he works!"

This last statement finds its answer in Isaiah 29:16.  The prophet writes, "Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?"  

Despite our objections and our indications that the situation is upside down and backwards, God pays us no attention.   He sees the entire project from drafting stage to finished product.  He has the full knowledge of what we will look like when he is finished.  Isaiah rightly reminds us we should not call God's methods into question.  The potter molds the clay, the carpenter molds the wood, and God molds us.  In all circumstances, the master molds, the material yields, and the result is perfection.

My first reaction when I saw Kevin working with the molding was to stop him.  I didn't believe he knew what he was doing; but I was wrong.  He was thinking on a plane much higher than mine.  God is the same way with us.  His thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways.  He thinks on planes and levels far above anything we can imagine  Left to us, life’s construction  would be a disaster; but yielded to God, it is a perfect fit every time.

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either the carpenter, nor the potter can make anything unless he holds the material, wood or clay, in his hand.  God is holding you in his hand right now.  Lovingly he sands, cuts, chisels, and shapes you until you fit perfectly into his plan.  Upside down and backwards, perhaps, but perfect every time!