In our thirty plus years of marriage I’ve lost track of how many times my wife has commented on the topic of dust. “Where does all of it come from? I just polished the furniture when I cleaned the house yesterday!”

It’s ironic we keep asking the same questions while also knowing the answer. Maybe it’s because we gross out when someone repeats the answer. Yes, humans shed millions of dead skin cells–daily. And dust also originates from our hair and dead skin.

But it’s not just us, bugs and trees also go through the shedding process. Our massive Crape Myrtle tree, which I planted in 2001 in the front yard garden, seems to shed more late in the summer where we live in North Georgia.

Large pieces of bark, some up to two to three feet in length, fall on top of our flowers and bushes and I begin the endless process of picking them up. From a distance, the bark looks like ripped pieces of cardboard. Then a smooth and beautiful reddish-brown inner bark is revealed on the tree. I love dragging my hands across it.

And little insect creatures can be found stuck to the bark of other trees, like the June Bug, who also endure the shedding process. I found a total of nine of them on our Bradford Pear trees in our back yard this summer when I kept our two-year old grandson. Wade loves rocks and bugs.

He was fascinated when I pulled them off one at a time. “I wanna hold one,” he said. When I put the hollow bug in the palm of his hand he quickly squeezed it and upon opening his hand he was shocked to discover there was nothing inside it. I said “The real June Bug is gone. This is what is left when they shed their skin.” Wade just stared down at the empty bug in his hand.

It’s interesting to learn that Scientists call these shed skins “exuviae”, which remain behind when the insect molts from the nymph stage into an adult. Other insects like dragonflies, damselflies, stoneflies, and mayflies also leave behind ghostly but recognizable exoskeletons. (blog.entomologist.net/what-insects-leave-behind-their-molts.html)

Wade looked puzzled, especially when I said, “June Bugs shed their skin multiple times as they grow. One day you will transform from a little boy into a teenager and then to an adult. Their shedding process allows them to grow larger until they reach their full size and eventually change into an adult beetle.”

Moving from our physical world to the spiritual, Jesus went through the great shedding process when He came here. He left or shed the splendor and glory of heaven to take on the nature of a servant, becoming human to dwell among us and fulfill His father’s will, not his own. He entered planet earth as a baby boy.  

Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message bible, puts it best, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son.” (John 1:14)

After Jesus left boyhood the great shedding process continued. People with blindness, lameness, deafness, chronic bleeding, paralysis, fevers, demon possession and mental affliction-shed their various ailments when the God-man touched and healed them. But the greater shedding was yet to be revealed.

At age 33 Jesus shed Himself, his whole self, blood and all when he hung on a cross so we wouldn’t experience spiritual death or eternal separation from God. You and I can’t polish away the sins in our life with (for example) humanitarian good works. We may try, but they keep showing up. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22b)

All Jesus asks is that we believe He is the only way to God and the innocent blood He shed covers our sins and because God raised Him from the dead, the Holy Spirit can take up residence in our heart and souls.

But for people like myself, who accepted God’s invitation to become a Christian a long time ago, there is still stuff to shed to become more like Jesus. God wants us to become like Christ so that we can be that light that our dark world is spiritually hungry for.

One hurdle that non-Christians can’t get past is the sins that Christians still play with and even hide. Saying to our non-believing world “No one is perfect,” doesn’t solve their soul’s dilemma. Our world constantly tells us to shed weight, debt, a negative self-image and depressive thoughts–but the void God put in the soul of every human being is still there.

Maybe the problem for some Christians is they keep trying to shed what they can never shed in their own strength and power. One of the most encouraging verses that I have memorized is: “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” May we continue to be open to the great shedding that God wants to do in us as we continue to follow His path instead of our own.

pictures courtesy of “Nelson & his Nikon”