If Pinhead had a mother and had every created her a jewelry box, I'm sure the outcome would be similar to the one that I created for mine. I vaguely remember building this, probably only because my mother has recounted the tale numerous times over the years.  When I was around 8 or 9 years old I decided that I would build my mother a jewelry box. I'm sure in my little mind I had envisioned a beautifully crafted mahogany box, but I didn't have any mahogany only pine. And I didn't have even have that in a premium number 1 grade. No what I had was construction grade number 2 grade knotted pine.  What most people commonly refer to as a 2×4.  I might have had a piece of 1×4 added in there as well but pretty much I can remember the whole thing built out of 2×4's. And if that weren't bad enough the entire thing was held together with 16 penny nails. Big honking nails driven thru the wood with their nice pointy ends protruding out the bottom. I do believe my intent being that they were the legs of the box and that the pointy ends would help keep it from sliding about.

I'm sure my mother also believed the pointy ends of the nails would assist in keeping the "box" from sliding around, as they dug and scraped their way across the finely finished surface of her dresser. Mom tells me that with glowing praise and an endearing smile, she gingerly accepted the gift of so much sweat and banged fingers all the while in fear of impalement by one of the protruding nails. She then ever so gently, after placing a washcloth on the surface, lowered the edifice on her dresser. She then thanked me once more for my kind and considerate efforts and then shooed me back outside to play.

I'm sure that we all have similar tales of things that we've made for our parents in our youth that we would cringe at today if we were to see them.  Pictures from Elementary school and our first pieces of pottery made in Middle School. But no matter how poor our early attempts at the arts were Mom and Dad always gave us high praise for the beauty of our work and thanked us with great love and affection. We went away feeling that we had done good, that our works were acceptable and that we had brought them joy.

I believe this to be a pretty fair analogy of what our "works" look like to God.  While the Bible teaches us many things that are to be done, they are all to be done out of love. I worship God because it not only brings me pleasure but it is a way to thank my Lord for all that he has done for me. I pray because I want to commune with my Father. I perform devotions because I want to pursue a greater knowledge of God.  But I don't perform any of these things with the intent that by doing them I'm in some way making myself more right with God. As soon as I think that, then my jewelry box is being handed over not out of love but out of a desire to have something given to me in return. The greatest gift that we can give God so pales in comparison to his own work that he must look on it in much the same manner that my mother looked at my creation of wood and nails.