Maybe the fact that I hate doing dishes contributes to my habit of letting my mind wander while I do them. Maybe it’s a form of dirty dish denial – whatever.
Today, while scrubbing a particularly crusty metal serving spoon, I noticed a splotch of fingernail polish on the neck of it. If I remember correctly, it was Bronzeberry Ice by Cutex and it’s been there for about 15 years.
This utensil marking custom is fairly common in church circles. There’s never enough serving utensils in the church kitchen, so when attending the ever popular potluck dinner, you take your favorite dish and a spoon, tongs, pie server, etc. to serve it up your dish.
At the end of the potluck, all the women and the dirty dishes wind up in the kitchen together. It’s at this point that you are in danger of losing your silverware. To keep that from happening, women often brush a dab of fingernail polish on their serving utensils to identify them, so this got me thinking.
We mark our belongings so that we don’t lose them. When we come to Jesus and make Him the Lord of our lives, he places His mark on us. Not Bronzeberry Ice, of course (they don’t make it anymore), but an invisible mark that bears testimony to the spirit world that we belong to him.
Wherever we go, whatever we do from that point on, we bear the identifying mark of Jesus Christ. A mark that speaks of ownership, a mark that says, “Keep your hands off, this one is mine.”
Though we may stray, the mark remains. If you have given your heart to Jesus, you bear his mark. He values you and will not let you go. He will continue to pull you back to him because he loves you.
So, do a quick check…has Jesus placed his mark on you? If so, rest assured that he knows where you are and stands ready to claim you as his own at the end of the potluck…I mean, at the end of your time here on earth.
And I still hate doing dishes!
(Copyright © 2009 Jan Christiansen. All rights reserved.)
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