It’s been somewhat inconvenient.  It’s been a little schedule-altering.  And it’s been very dusty.  Very, very dusty.  The work that’s been going on in our building over the last 3 weeks is progressing well, and it’s even reminded me of an important lesson.  The painting and ceiling work in our foyer areas, hall, and sanctuary is something that has been in the works for some time now, but, specifically, it’s the popcorn ceiling work that made me stop and think.  I knew the decision to remove the popcorn finish would be quite a bit of work, and I was told that we would only know how much work once it was removed.  They were right.  Once all that popcorn finish was scraped away, we were able to see the full extent of the small problems we knew about, and many imperfections we knew nothing about were revealed.  You see, that popcorn finish (and it was the “thing” when our building was built) was able to cover any shortcomings in the ceiling drywall work.  Only with the popcorn down could we see all that needed to be done to give the kind of finish to the ceiling that it requires in order to be painted.  And that made me think.  Isn’t that true of us at times?  We throw on a “popcorn finish” instead of dealing with the imperfections (a.k.a. “sins”) in our lives.  That popcorn could be made up of pride, embarrassment, procrastination, self-will, or just out and out rebellion.  And there they will stay until the covering is scraped away and the needed repairs revealed and done.  Proverbs 28:13 says, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”  And let me tell you; that scraping and repair process makes a mess.  But it sure looks nice when it’s done.  So if there’s something you have covered up today, let the Spirit of God and the Word of God get busy.  It’ll be ugly at first, but the end result will be a shining example of grace for the glory of God!