You can pay extra these days to buy jeans with ready-made holes that make them look old. You can buy spray-on mud so that your 4x4 looks as if it’s been off-road (yes, I’m serious). But there are no easy shortcuts to maturity in the Christian life.

Rory Gallagher was an Irish Blues guitarist who played a battered old Fender Guitar. The paint was stripped off most of it, and it went well with the gritty blues it was used to play. Johnny Marr, of 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 to get its battered blues look Gallagher’s guitar travelled a long road of Irish pubs and clubs over many years.

Possible Preaching Angle:

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, to follow the example of our Savior (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? Embrace it. Trust him. Christlikeness is not cheap.

Source:

Ian Sample, “Spray-on Mud: The ultimate accessory for city 4x4 drivers,” The Guardian (6-14-05); Josh Gardner, “Rate Guitars: Rory Gallagher’s 1961 Fender Stratocaster,” Guitar.com (5-16-19)