Whittled
by Patrick Frasier
There is a driving force within all of us that makes us want to continually strive to be a better person. Even if we are happy with the changes we have made in our lives, we have a cricket on our shoulder shouting out an infinite amount of blurbs making sure we don’t regress.
Colorado is my God place. It is virtually impossible to seclude yourself these days because of email or because a cell phone ring destroys any chance of productivity that alone time might bring. I only bring that up because in Colorado I get no cell phone reception and have no computer. It’s really a beautiful thing. Trees, river, me, God. That’s all that’s there and that why I like it. My grandparents have a house in southern Colorado right on the Rio Grande River. If the river rose 10 feet their front deck would be in the water.
So I go to this place to hang out with God. No interruptions. I had a feeling something big would happen this past summer during my visit. I think that maybe because I was expecting a big epiphany, that when God spoke I missed it.
I was sitting with my grandpa at the kitchen table looking at all of his amazing carvings that line the giant windows that overlook the river. I asked him how he did it. How did he go from a simple block of wood to a mountain man, a longhorn, a fisherman, a cowgirl or any of the other elaborate objects that were before us. He said, “Well Patrick, it’s kind of simple, I know what I’m going to make so whatever doesn’t look like it I take off.”
It’s that simple? I don’t know about you, but to me all of that sounds crazy. Sharp knives and different varieties of wood, fancy names for cutting techniques and all it boils down to is taking off whatever doesn’t look right? The only epiphany I had that day was that my 80-year-old grandfather is an amazing man.
I spent the rest of the afternoon on the deck watching my grandpa whittle and listen to him tell stories about Colorado, superstitions about carving wood and other things only 80-year-old men can say out of experience. I thought about what he said, “I know what I’m going to make so whatever doesn’t look like it I take off.” I thought about it for months. It wasn’t until I heard a talk about the Holy Spirit that it began to make sense to me.
Most people forget about the Holy Spirit. They focus on God the Father, and claim Jesus as their savior, but I never really hear much about the Holy Spirit. That’s the part of God that’s in us as followers of Christ. He’s constantly trying to show us the light, the way to righteousness, the way to be closer to God, the way to be more like Jesus. I thought, "it is that simple.” We just have to let the Holy Spirit carve us. We have to allow the parts that are not like Jesus to be cut away. Whatever is not a part of the person God made us to be, we can just take it off. So you’re a negative person? Cut. Done. We have to have faith that with the Holy Spirit in us and with our love of Jesus, we are capable of anything.
There is a driving force within all of us that makes us want to continually strive to be a better person. Even if we are happy with the changes we have made in our lives, we have a cricket on our shoulder shouting out an infinite amount of blurbs making sure we don’t regress.
Colorado is my God place. It is virtually impossible to seclude yourself these days because of email or because a cell phone ring destroys any chance of productivity that alone time might bring. I only bring that up because in Colorado I get no cell phone reception and have no computer. It’s really a beautiful thing. Trees, river, me, God. That’s all that’s there and that why I like it. My grandparents have a house in southern Colorado right on the Rio Grande River. If the river rose 10 feet their front deck would be in the water.
So I go to this place to hang out with God. No interruptions. I had a feeling something big would happen this past summer during my visit. I think that maybe because I was expecting a big epiphany, that when God spoke I missed it.
I was sitting with my grandpa at the kitchen table looking at all of his amazing carvings that line the giant windows that overlook the river. I asked him how he did it. How did he go from a simple block of wood to a mountain man, a longhorn, a fisherman, a cowgirl or any of the other elaborate objects that were before us. He said, “Well Patrick, it’s kind of simple, I know what I’m going to make so whatever doesn’t look like it I take off.”
It’s that simple? I don’t know about you, but to me all of that sounds crazy. Sharp knives and different varieties of wood, fancy names for cutting techniques and all it boils down to is taking off whatever doesn’t look right? The only epiphany I had that day was that my 80-year-old grandfather is an amazing man.
I spent the rest of the afternoon on the deck watching my grandpa whittle and listen to him tell stories about Colorado, superstitions about carving wood and other things only 80-year-old men can say out of experience. I thought about what he said, “I know what I’m going to make so whatever doesn’t look like it I take off.” I thought about it for months. It wasn’t until I heard a talk about the Holy Spirit that it began to make sense to me.
Most people forget about the Holy Spirit. They focus on God the Father, and claim Jesus as their savior, but I never really hear much about the Holy Spirit. That’s the part of God that’s in us as followers of Christ. He’s constantly trying to show us the light, the way to righteousness, the way to be closer to God, the way to be more like Jesus. I thought, "it is that simple.” We just have to let the Holy Spirit carve us. We have to allow the parts that are not like Jesus to be cut away. Whatever is not a part of the person God made us to be, we can just take it off. So you’re a negative person? Cut. Done. We have to have faith that with the Holy Spirit in us and with our love of Jesus, we are capable of anything.
posted at 12:23 PM
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