Of paint…

Some people can paint.  Some cannot.

I grew up painting.  Walls, that is.  Although I enjoy picture painting, I am by no means the next Renoir. However,  when it comes to slapping paint on walls, I manage pretty well.

One of the first things we did in Brazil was help to construct a church.  The church we were attending had been renting a building, but had recently purchased some land and began building the church.  They were in the process of prepping the tiles for the roof when we arrived. 

Cement block walls rose to meet metal rafters and the tiles were about 4x6 feet and were made of cement as well.  The tiles were wavy with about five or six waves per sheet. 

My family and I were asked to help paint and showed up at the church ready to work. 

Now, one very important aspect of painting is the paint.  Good paint in the can means good paint on the walls, and bad paint in the can—I’m sure you’ve guessed—means bad paint on the walls.

One of the men from the church had prepped the paint.  Not being of a painting mind, he assumed the following. 

1.      If adding a little water to thin the paint was good…

2.      Adding a lot of water was better…

3.      Adding even more water would stretch the paint even further.

4.      One could paint the entire ceiling with a gallon of paint.

My family and I regarded the resultant paint with dismay.  The consistency of skim milk, there was no way on earth it was going to cover the tiles.  Or stay on the rollers long enough to get to the tiles, since it ran from the rollers like water through a colander. 

We grabbed rollers with the longest nap possible and dunked it into the paint before slopping it onto the tile using the nap to push it around and create some kind of coverage. 

The results were splotchy to say the least.  We did use up all the watery paint on several coats of paint none of which did much to cover. 

In the end, the church bought a few more buckets of paint and my dad rushed to assure the man from the church that he would thin it as much as needed.

Perhaps a lesson to be learned is, like that man from the church, we think that the Gospel could be improved with maybe a few other things added to it.  And if a few things added are good, maybe a few other things to make it more appealing to a sinner would be better. 

But the only thing that can truly and abidingly cover the multitude of our sins is the pure and unaltered Gospel.  Jesus’ blood and atonement is enough.  Don’t thin down the Gospel with anything else.

And to avoid frustration, don’t thin your paint with too much water.