Cut and Split
How God uses taking down to build up
 
"I never believed in coincidences. The words of Romans 8:28 point to greater intent in all things than mere happenstance. So when I think of a profession for Jesus, He could have been a fisherman, a stone cutter, cupbearer, a soldier, or a member of the aristocracy. Instead, He was a carpenter (Mark 6:3) and the son of a carpenter (Matthew 13:55). He took rough wood and made it into something useful, or beautiful, or both. Coincidence? I think not.
 
Carpentry, cabinet making, and construction are professions that take the rough and transform it into something beneficial and valuable. A log is just a log until a craftsman fashions it into something else that protects, performs, and is to be admired.
 
Jesus was a carpenter – both of wood and of souls. The Word of God becomes the saw, chisel, the router, and the sandpaper. We are the raw lumber – rough, tough and generally not much use until we fall into the hands of the Carpenter. Left to ourselves we are nothing. In the hands of the Master Craftsmen we become something – His siblings and co-heirs of salvation.
Mark has a way with words and circumstance. He can take a theme like working with wood and massage it into a thoughtful devotional lesson. That is what we have in this labor of love. You do not have to be a woodworker to get the point of each devotion, but woodworking provides the imagery of words to hit home a point of Scripture.
 
In this collection of devotions Mark has shared with us unique insights that focus on God’s Word. Yes, he talks about woodworking. Yet he communicates in a manner that anyone can understand. He brushes away the shavings and the sawdust to reveal a masterful piece of beauty that points to a wooden cross and the salvation that is ours because of the sacrifice of a Carpenter who was none other than the Son of God.
 
Mark poured his heart out in this effort, and we are the most fortunate to be the ones to benefit from that labor. May all who read these devotions come to better understand the One who worked with wood, died on wood, and rose that we would belong to him in heaven forever.