Just Under the Bark

When the weather cooperates, our Friday session of Out of the Woodwork spends the three hours or so running the sawmill and cutting the material that will eventually become useful projects in the wood shop. This past Friday was exceptional in that the morning was cool and although there were only three of us, four logs were turned into boards. The first cut made in turning a round log into flat boards results in what is called the opening face. I never tire of lifting that first bark covered slab off that face and seeing the treasure that was hiding in the log. It's difficult to know just what that log, which was once part of a living tree, is going to look like inside. Often, what appears to be a really handsome looking log turns out to be not so nice inside and, of course, the opposite is also true. Either way getting inside is necessary to know whether you have high grade lumber or firewood.

I got thinking about how we can't determine what might become of a log without looking below the bark. There is something very similar that happens in our relationships with people. Just like the logs in the log pile, people have an appearance that can be deceiving. Having just heard of the loss of one of my favorite actors, Robin Williams, I was reminded that what we see on the outside is not always a reflection of the inside. We owe it to the people that God allows to cross our paths, to look below the "bark". God already does this. He sees the inside and knows us from the inside out. My work on the sawmill has taught me to look inside in order to know just what

the log is like. I'm trying to do likewise with the people in my life as well. Naturally, this takes a bit more time than the rhetorical, "How ya feeling?" But people are God's greatest work and they are worth it.