We all know that sanding can be very useful when it comes to woodworking or finishing furniture. But if you take sandpaper and rub it against your skin, it doesn’t feel good. It’s abrasive and painful. There are certain people in our lives who are just hurtful and annoying. They irritate us. They rub us the wrong way. They get under our skin.
You may encounter sandpaper people every single day at your workplace. Some of them may even live in your house with you! Often it’s the people we love the most who irritate us the most. But how often do you stop to think about how you bother those around you? You maybe the sandpaper person in the midst of your family and friends. The reality is that we’re all sandpaper people. We all irritate other people at times, and that’s part of God’s plan for our lives.
Yes, you read correctly. Sandpaper people are part of God’s plan for your life. He allows sandpaper people into your life so He can craft you into a sharper tool for His purposes. Paul explains, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. In the Greek the word for “workmanship” literally means “a work of art or a masterpiece.” God is crafting you into the perfect tool to accomplish His amazing plan for you.
This puts a fantastic twist on those relationships that annoy us. They are allowed into our lives for our own good, to smooth away our rough edges and make us more like Christ. This sounds wonderfully spiritual, but the problem is, how do we get along with all the other tools in the shed? Some folks seem to rub us the wrong way no matter how they try to work together. If only they were more like us, then we’d all enjoy complete harmony, right? Other than being completely unrealistic, such bliss would also rub us of becoming all that God wants us to be.
