January 28, 2024
Our culture loves shortcuts, but the best things in life require a longer journey. A love that lasts 50 years of marriage even though there were times when you couldn’t stand one another is one example. Some things are only born out of long journeying. Transformation into Christlikeness is one of them.
Did you know you can pay extra these days to buy jeans with ready-made holes that make them look old? You can even buy sprayon mud so that your 4×4 looks as if it’s been off-road (yes, I’m serious). But there are no easy shortcuts to maturity in the Christian life.
One of the first music gigs I heard I hadn’t actually bought a ticket for. I was outside the stage door of the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow. Rory Gallagher, an Irish Blues guitarist, was playing and my 13 year old self felt like I was getting a free concert as his wailing guitar penetrated the walls of the venue and flooded the surrounding streets outside. I, of course, stuck around, not wanting to pass up on such a freebie.
Rory was known for playing a battered old Fender Guitar that he’d had for years. The paint was stripped off most of it, and it went well with the gritty blues it was used to play. Later, Johnny Marr, of the band, the Smiths, admired Gallagher’s guitar so much that he took his own guitar to the woodwork room at school, trained a blowtorch on it, set the guitar on fire and nearly burned down the school. But the reality was, that to get its battered blues look, Gallagher’s guitar had travelled a very long road of Irish pubs and clubs and rough concert venues over many years.
We may think that if we would only read the right books and go to the right conferences, we might quickly become a mature Christian. Not so. We have to go through times of difficulty with the hard knocks of life. Even Jesus had to ‘learn obedience’ (Heb. 5:8). Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness before he was used by God. Joseph was 13 years in an Egyptian prison. Jesus lived 30 years in peasant obscurity before 3 years that changed the world. What is God taking you through just now? Lean into it. Allow it to transform something in you. Trust him. Christlikeness is not cheap.
Source: Ian Sample, “Spray-on Mud: The ultimate accessory for city 4×4 drivers,” The Guardian (6-14-05); Josh Gardner, “Rate Guitars: Rory Gallagher’s 1961 Fender Stratocaster,” Guitar.com (5-16-19)
Julian Holdsworth, BSBC Pastor