Flatpack

It is AMAZING how much stuff you can get in flatpack nowadays. I guess companies like IKEA popularised it. But it’s now at the point where you can literally get almost anything in a flatpack. Even bathroom suites – I saw a sink, toilet and shower set in a box the other day. That just seems a bit weird to me… It’s ok if you’re a plumber I guess but there’s no way I’d trust a toilet I’d built myself!

Well, a few weeks ago, I took delivery of a brand new couch – 3 seater, chaise long, under-seat storage and it turns into a bed. The WORKS. And yes it was from Ikea, but there was no way they’d manage to make such a complex piece of furniture into flat-pack… Well, let’s just say that I was wrong! It came in quite a few pieces which, once put together became my couch. 

I have to say though, even though it’s a great couch, I often look at it and check that it’s still functioning like a normal couch, I check the structural integrity, that there’s no sag, that the mechanisms for the bed bit still work… It really is fine, but because I made it, I don’t fully trust it.

The same goes for the things of God. We can never manufacture, manipulate or scheme our way into the things of God. We can never make it ourselves. We can’t create what only the Creator has the ability to create. We have limited ability, but we try and do it in so many ways –

• We try and manipulate a work situation for a promotion rather than live faithfully according to the Word and trust God for the promotion.
• We try to fill the God-shaped hole in our lives with entertainment, human relationships or sin. 
• We try to earn our salvation by doing various things to build a bridge to God even though Jesus already built it. 

The Bible says in Romans chapter 1 that we have ‘exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images’. And as a result, it says that God gives us our choice and allows us to worship created things rather than the creator, the gift rather than the giver which is frankly, a tragedy.

Let’s never be flatpack believers who are content with a human-made effort when we have access to the glory of God.

– Dave