Spray on faith.

Spray on faith.

There is a new housing development near our neighborhood. They have about one hundred houses and people are starting to move in on a fairly regular basis. The other day while we were driving by it, my wife pointed out something interesting.

Instead of buying new pine straw for the landscaping that rings the property, the development decided to paint it. Instead of doing something new and true, they simply gave the old, sun worn pine straw a darker shade of paint.

I've never seen that before and maybe it's better for the environment. Maybe, instead of using real pine straw, painting it is a clever way to recycle it without wasting anything. I'm not a yard guy so I am admittedly not a pine straw expert. But something about doing that reminded me of faith.

I think that at times in my life, I have been guilty of spraying my heart with "holy spray." Instead of doing something new and true, like laying fresh pine straw down, I instead just do things that look holy on the outside. I spray myself with big, long prayers or visible acts of kindness that are done in front of other people so that they will think I am a good Christian. I put on a great show, but underneath my actions is old pine straw that is getting worn out despite the new layer of paint.

Worse yet, I think people that aren't Christians can tell when we do this. Much like my wife pointing out the colored pine straw, they can see that all we have done is change our surface. They see that we are faking it and much like DC Talk once said, the hypocrisy of it all chases people away from the Lord.

I don't have a solution for this, as I've just noticed it, but I do have a prayer. I pray that this week, at work, at home, in what I write, in what I do, I will lay down the new and true, instead of just putting a coat of paint on my life.