OPINION —
The more I study the Bible and examine the life and ministry of Jesus, the more I’m captivated by His ability to draw people into a conversation. He had a way of making people think, but even more than that, He knew how to relate truth to everyday life. Jesus talked about birds in the air, lilies in the field, seeds in the ground, lamps in a house and stones in our hands. Again and again, He took ordinary things people understood and used them to reveal extraordinary truths.
Jesus was a master of object teaching. With that in mind, maybe there’s something we can learn from one of the most ordinary objects around us: a pencil. At first glance, there’s nothing remarkable about it. Most of us have used hundreds, maybe thousands, over the course of our lives without ever giving them much thought.
A pencil was designed for a purpose. It wasn’t made simply to sit in a drawer or look nice on a desk. It was made to write. In the same way, Scripture reminds us that our lives aren’t random or meaningless. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” That verse reminds us that we were created on purpose and for a purpose.
A pencil also bears the mark of its maker. Somewhere along the side you can usually find the name of the company that produced it, and that marking tells you where it came from. Christians are supposed to carry identifying marks too. Jesus said in John 13 that people would know we are His disciples by the way we love one another. Our actions, attitudes and reactions tell people something about the One we claim to belong to.
That should make us think carefully about the mark we leave behind. Every time a pencil moves across paper, it leaves something there, and our lives do the same thing. Every conversation, every interaction, every act of kindness or impatience leaves an impression on someone else. The question isn’t whether we’re leaving a mark. We are. The question is what kind of mark we’re leaving.
Do people walk away from us more bitter, more discouraged and more cynical? Or do they leave having seen something of the love, patience and grace of Christ? Paul understood the importance of influence when he wrote, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” Our lives are always teaching something, even when we aren’t standing in front of a class.
There’s another lesson in the pencil that may be a little less comfortable. The more a pencil is used and gets worn down, eventually it has to be sharpened. In other words, fulfilling its purpose costs it something. Paul understood that kind of life too. In 2 Corinthians 12:15 he wrote, “I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls.”
That’s a challenging thought in a world that often tells us to protect our comfort at all costs. Following Christ means being willing to serve, love, forgive, give, endure and sometimes be sharpened along the way. Proverbs 27:17 reminds us that “as iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” Sometimes God uses other people, difficult seasons and hard lessons to shape us into who we were created to be.
Then there’s the eraser. A pencil can make a wrong mark, but it was designed with a way to deal with mistakes. That doesn’t mean the mistake never happened, but it does mean the mistake doesn’t have to remain the final word on the page. That’s a powerful picture of grace.
We all make mistakes. More than that, we all sin. We say things we wish we could take back, make choices we regret and sometimes leave marks on our own lives and the lives of others that we’re ashamed of. But our failures don’t have to define us forever.
First Peter 1 reminds us that we were not redeemed with silver or gold, but “with the precious blood of Christ.” Our value isn’t determined by how perfect our record is. It’s seen in the price Christ was willing to pay for us. We were purchased at a price, and that price tells us just how much we matter to God.
There is, however, one major difference between you and a pencil. A pencil has no choice. It cannot decide whether it will fulfill its purpose, and it cannot choose to spend its entire existence tucked away in a drawer, untouched and unused. It simply waits for someone to pick it up.
But you can choose.
God has given us a will. We can place ourselves in His hands and allow Him to use us, shape us, sharpen us and send us, or we can resist the very purpose for which we were created. We can spend our lives trying to write our own story, or we can trust the One who created us enough to let Him guide the pencil.
You were created. You have a purpose. You bear the mark of your Creator, you’re leaving a mark on the people around you, and you were purchased at a price.
The question is whether you’ll place your life in the hands of the One who created you and allow Him to use it for something that matters.
