FIX STRIPS

Who hasn't used duct (or duck) tape—the thick, sticky adhesive fabric now sold in a rainbow of colors and that's a mainstay for quick repairs. A few years ago, an intrepid teen I know fashioned her prom gown entirely of duct tape. (She could hardly wait for the evening to end so she could be cut out of it and use the restroom!) Give a home handyman a roll of duct tape, and watch him go to work. My husband has a whole drawerful in various colors. Mostly he uses them to patch gouged seats of bikes he refurbishes. Why replace a whole seat when there's just a gash somewhere?

As a baby-boomer, born after the war, I've always been around duct tape, but was surprised to learn the idea came from a mom with two sons in the Navy in World War 2. She wrote then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, pleading for something better to seal the boxes of ammunition that she was helping pack in a war factory. The wax-and-paper-tape seals just weren't doing the job, and when they failed in the midst of a battle, the soldiers were left without access to more ammunition. The president liked her idea, and ordered up the invention and production of a pressure-sensitive cloth adhesive. “Duck tape,” it also became known, because moisture tended to roll off it like water off a duck. It's so versatile and reliable that it's gone on space missions!

So now you know! Besides its military and repair uses, it's made its way to the craft world. A few years ago I noticed an article about how to create your own wallet from duct tape! (One way to help money stick around...) And while people can joke about this “miracle” tape, I think of the greater miracle of God's fix-it strategies. Sometimes they're not what we'd come up with, but in the long run they're better. One of the Old Testament's frequently quoted verses about God's power is this:

I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything to hard for me? (Jeremiah 32:26)

It's part of a long prophecy about how rebellious Israel would be destroyed and its residents carted off to captivity—but eventually returned to their homeland (v. 37). Indeed that happened in small measure seventy years later and also hundreds of years later as World War 2 ended.

The bigger message from that miracle was how God still takes people from their “captivity” to sinful choices and gives them a new purpose and future hope. Jesus zeroed in on that when a rich young man asked Him the way to heaven. Jesus suggested he quit counting on his “moral life” and give up all his wealth to follow Jesus. The rich man's money was more important to him. He was like a loaded-down camel attempting to squeeze through the eye of a needle. When Jesus' disciples heard this, they asked who in the world could then be saved? Jesus replied, “With man, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). This wasn't necessarily a rebuke of having wealth. God has blessed with wealth many who invest it in ministries. But in this case, the man preferred his wealthy comfort to following Jesus at any cost.

So, back to duct (duck) tape—is there anything not worth fixing? I look at this battered world and think, Yes, there's much worth fixing. That's why we have a Savior, who revealed God's eternal plan for “cross-repaired” people to live forever with Him.