Ongoing Repairs

I woke up on Saturday morning to frozen water pipes, and knew that my agenda had been set for the day. If you have read my blog for awhile you’ll know that any home repair project usually takes me all day, not due to the difficulty of the job at hand, but due to the lack of expertise in the hands doing the job. Still, I occasionally attempt to make repairs, and sometimes even improvements.

Our house is not a mansion; it’s more like me - sort of small to medium, with more of a sturdy build than any graceful elegance, and with a definite mind of its own. Like me it is resistant to change; even openly hostile to my ideas of what it ought to be. But slowly, surely, and occasionally even patiently I am enlightening it, changing its self-concept, convincing it that it is not an ugly, old house - it is a great space that I would like to inhabit and be on friendly terms with - a space full of promise and beauty and order and life.

I suspect that it wants to cooperate, but it's hard to trust in your builder, so I must be patient. Whoever it was that shaped this place before we came along did so with some pretty big nails, deep cuts, hard hammers and rough saws. And sometimes in the heat of the toil of my labor I give in to fits of selfish rage - frustration more over my lack of skill than over the house’s lack of progress.

Still, I am strangely moved by the place and I proclaim the gospel to it softly. I say, "I know how it hurts to be torn up. I am often choked on the litter left by my own remodeling. I know what it's like to settle into the despair of believing that you are wasted space. I have felt the blows of heavy hammers that nailed me to a sense of uselessness. I have been shaped by some pretty careless workers who came to the task of making me and lacked the craftsmanship or artistry to do so. Even worse, much of the damage and decay that I suffer from was self inflicted. I know the pain of wanting to be changed and yet being distrustful of changes, of wanting to be worked on, but being suspicious of the intentions of the Worker. But here is some good news:

He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Phil 1:6

Now THAT is good news. However messy we may be now, however confusing and scary it appears, however endless the task may seem, we will some day be glorious, beautiful, and alive!

There is much tearing out to do - a lot to give up. No thin coat of new paint, no shallow, petty piety will do. It's not good enough to cover up imperfection, it must be corrected. Art, beauty, function - these things take time. They may indeed take until the end of the age. But we are not wasted space, we are temples of a Being greater than ourselves, temples being built to be inhabited and brought to Life.

Though we may not understand the process, our Builder does. We are being made by a Master Carpenter. We are His workmanship and the place where He lives, and we can never give up, because He certainly never will.