So I’ve been using this stuff called Gorilla Glue, have you seen it?

Gorilla Glue came out as a carpenter’s wood glue, and it’s interesting to say the least. It’s supposed to be the strongest glue on earth, if you read the propaganda er I mean advertising on the bottle and in the stores. It bonds all sorts of things together and it does it without damaging them, at least so it claims. I tried it when I put a pine cabinet together for my silly Gamecube game collection.

Now, usually I’d use good old reliable white Elmer’s glue, which I’ve used pretty much all my life. Not only does it hold well but when kids from the congregation come to my house for a potluck or something I don’t worry about them getting sick when they chew on my furniture (and they do chew, I’ve seen it). I’ve eaten the stuff myself and it’s harmless (and doesn’t taste too bad – hey, maybe that’s WHY they chew on the furniture, but I digress…)

The thing is, I got this new wiz-bang glue and gave it a spin. I followed the steps carefully, wetting one piece of the wood before applying the glue and leaving the other side dry and applying just a teeny-tiny bit of the glue there. I assembled the whole cabinet and clamped it and waited for it to dry. Uh, yeah. What happened? Turns out Gorilla Glue is an e-x-p-a-n-s-I-v-e glue and will take up as much as 5 times its original size when dried! It pushed out of the joints and seeped into whatever was nearby. Say, oh, the carpet! And much to my dismay, it is indeed quite the strong glue when dried. I discovered the cabinet glued to the floor in a couple spots which I had to carefully cut away to not damage my carpet. In spite of the fact I had used it so sparingly, it still got me. Everywhere it oozed out I had to scrape off the excess and throw it away.

Well that got me to thinking – it’s really not so different than other things like water, fire, gasoline, etc. If you are careful with them they serve us well, but if not watch out or you’ve got quite the mess on your hands. And I thought about Festus and Pharaoh, Balak and Haman. Even the devil himself. None of these are heroic or good for anything, in our minds, yet God found a way to use all of them to achieve his purposes. Festus helped spread the word by sending Paul on to Rome, preaching all the way. Pharaoh was stubborn enough to fully demonstrate God’s power. Balak ended up causing God’s people to be blessed instead of cursed, and Haman instigated, in a left handed way, a law that caused God’s people to be favored and preserved. None of these intended to do any sort of service to God, yet they all did by being exactly what they were, enemies of God. He simply knew how to use them right. And the devil? He used God’s own people to deliver up God’s own son to die, which through his death (and resurrection!) we have become more than conquerors. God used the devil as an integral part to accomplish his plan for the salvation of man. Surely something satan had never desired or intended!

So the other day I had a job where I needed a glue that would expand out and fill in a cavity inside a cap, and then hold like iron on to a post. The Gorilla didn’t let me down! I can see this stuff is indeed very useful. Once I understood how it worked, how to handle it, there were no more problems. I firmly believe God is that same way. When we meet people in our lives who seem so very difficult, we should remember that God is in control. We aren’t puppets on strings, but God guides all of us, good and bad, and accomplishes his purposes in this world. I guess the question is are we the part that holds things together, or the excess that gets scraped off and thrown away.

Randy