"Using a Paint Brush to Catch Men"

Every time I paint or smell fresh paint, I think of my old friend Cecil.  Cecil was a transplant to rural Chilton County from Birmingham.  It was fun watching his family and him adjust to rural living.  His wife, son, and daughter attended my home church, but Cecil did not.

Cecil was one of our frequent stops for church visitation.  He was always cordial and polite.  He enjoyed our visit but would not attend church even though every Sunday he would bring his children to church and drop them off for Sunday school.

Cecil’s vocation as a painter meant that he worked mostly in metro Birmingham.  It was through this work that God used his co-workers as witnesses.  His coworkers were faithful Christian men.  When you spend more hours with coworkers than you do your family, one learns much about a person.  Cecil’s coworkers never intimidated, but just talked about how good God was.

Day in and day out Cecil’s coworkers talked of their churches and the work that the Lord was doing.  They were able to do what our church visitation could not.  This daily witness through their conversations was the Holy Spirit’s way of touching Cecil’s heart.  One Sunday morning Cecil did not drop off his children.  He came with them.  During the morning invitation, Cecil jumped from the pew and ran down the aisle with his hands lifted saying, “Praise God, praise God.”  During his baptism, he told how he wasted many years of serving God.  When he came up out of the water he shouted, “Praise God, praise God.”

Cecil did not miss a service.  You knew when Cecil was there because he would say amen, halleluiah, or praise God.  This was unusual for my home church, which had an old deacon who always frowned upon any kind of Pentecostal jargon, ecclesiastic shenanigans, or heavenly applause. During one Christmas cantata, Cecil cried and shouted during the performance.  Don’t you know it must have been difficult for preachers and evangelists to preach to a non-responsive pre-Cecil congregation?

Cecil became a member of our church visitation program.  He was very active in our jailhouse ministry.  If the church had an activity, he was there.  He never taught but he did paint.  Boy, could he paint.  If you around him when he wore his work clothes, you could smell paint.  He smelled like a freshly painted room, clean and refreshing.

Our church helped remodel the associational office and we volunteered to do the painting.  I am a three-coat painter.  I paint the wall, me, and everything else.  Cecil was a one-coat painter.  He said if you wipe the brush more than once, you were rubbing off the paint.  Cecil could paint window frames without taping.  He was fun to watch.

On one occasion, we helped a sister church do some construction work.  When we arrived, a man named Snuffy was painting the eves of the church.  He had a stepladder, a can of paint, and a brush.  Cecil volunteered to help Snuffy. 

After a few minutes, Cecil asked if he could give Snuffy a break.  Cecil noticed that Snuffy was wiping off more paint than he applied.  Cecil went up the ladder painted and did more painting in a few seconds than Snuffy had in several minutes.  Snuffy was continually moving the ladder because Cecil could paint so fast.  Cecil said that he had a telescoping work plank, we call it a pique board up home, and ladders at home that would speed up the painting.  Cecil borrowed my truck and returned with the painting accessories. 

What would have taken Snuffy weeks, Cecil did in a couple of hours.

What seemed as a short time later, Cecil was diagnosed with cancer and died.  He continued to attend church, sometimes in a wheelchair, until he became bedridden.  In his brief time as a believer, Cecil witnessed to many people.  He had a great testimony.  According to Delos Miles in his book, Introduction to Evangelism, Cecil was an individual soul winner.  After Cecil’s conversion, he lived what Jesus said to Simon, “Apo tou nun anthropous ese zogron.”  That is, “From now on you will be catching men.” Cecil used a paintbrush to catch men just as his coworkers with him.

For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing (Second Corinthians 2:15 NIV).