A reprint from 2003

God came to visit His people on earth. He told them. “I have only one teaching for you to observe. In every locality, I want you to put up a simple wooden fence post for me. I want you to paint the post blue.” He then admonished them saying, “I am leaving, but some day I will return to take all of you who keep my teaching about the blue posts to be with me forever.”

The Good Lord left, and immediately, posts went up all over the world and paint was applied. Years passed, however, and God delayed His return.

Some folks who originally had a blue post repainted theirs hunter green. They said, “Times have changed, people just don’t respect a blue post anymore.”

A purple post appeared. The people in that locality said that purple made them feel blue, and that it was more important to feel blue than to actually be blue.

Patriotism, being alive and well in one community, influenced them to paint their post red, white and blue. They argued that since they kept blue in the color scheme, the additional colors were ok. Besides, God didn’t say not to use red and white.

Another post wound up brown. Blue had become a local gang color and they did not want anyone to think that they supported that.

One community was home to a university. The university’s colors were orange and white. The people wanted to reach out to the students, so…. well, you know.

Not wanting to be considered a sexist bunch, another locality painted their post half pink and half blue. “No need to risk being labeled”, they said.

An environmentally conscious community painted their post in earth tones.

It was their own way of expressing honor to God for making the planet.

One accommodating group painted their post lavender, lest anyone consider them homophobes.

Perhaps the most humanly eye-pleasing post was painted gold. It glistened in the sun. This group had made one man in the community their religious leader and he claimed to have received a revelation from God about the change.

Drab though it was, another community used gray instead of blue. They said that it was a contrasting color that made people think of blue and that blue was just a symbolic color anyway.

There was a bright flashy red post. It had been discovered that most all of the citizens in this town had some of this red paint at home. They decided that God would not have given them all of that red paint if He did not want them to use it for His post.

The most ecumenical group painted their post blue… and red and orange and white and gold and green and gray and pink and purple and lavender and brown and earth tones too. They thought unity with others was more important than sticking with the blue.

The saddest looking post had no paint at all. These folks had plenty of blue paint, but were fussing over whether they should apply it with brushes, rollers or sprayers.

Alas and finally, there was one post with a nice coat of blue paint. The other communities spoke ill of these people though. They were considered old-fashioned and were ridiculed for having taken God’s word about a blue post so literally. How arrogant they were for even questioning whether God would accept all of the other posts with their wonderful array of colors! How self-righteous they were considered for warning others that God only promised to accept posts that were blue! How “holier than thou”! How legalistic! How narrow-minded for not seeing the beauty in all of the diversity!

What will happen when God returns? It’s just a silly made-up story. But Jesus did say:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Matthew 7:21
Marty Kessler