Building Projects
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2:22
Have you ever been on a construction site? They’re awful. It’s bad enough when it’s a new building. But when it’s an existing building being gutted and rebuilt it can be even worse. In either case, no one worries about cleanliness or litter. My husband is a painting contractor. He isn’t a slob. His office is often cluttered but the floor isn’t covered in empty diet Mt. Dew bottles, empty food wrappers or various other debris. Yet, when I go to see him on a site he may well be surrounded by all kinds of rubbish. Those things, those leavings of the people working there are only the beginning. At the same site there are bits and pieces of wood, metal, nails, screws, etc. There is dust and dirt everywhere. It’s hard to believe that in a few weeks it can go from looking like a landfill to looking like a beautiful home, office or church building.
Maybe you are very forgiving of your own faults and foibles. I am not. I want to be all clean and shiny, all decorated and as lovely as possible. I don’t want anyone to know what I was like before the reconstruction started or what I looked like at the early demolition phase. At this moment in my life I would say that I am still a work in progress. There are still empty bottles, gum wrappers and scraps that need to be cleaned up. I don’t want you to know about those either.
An actual building has no feelings. All cute children’s stories aside, there sweet little cottage around the corner does not tell stories to all who enter in. A building is a building, mortar, brick, wood and other inanimate objects. The building doesn’t cringe when we look at it in its halfway stage. Most human beings cringe.
I would bet that more than a few people share my fear of being known. Yet none of us gets from birth to home without encountering the loving but serious pruning of God. Our Father wants the best for us. In order to lead us toward that He has to remove the things that are in the way. One day I would like my back porch to extend all the way across the house to come right up against my husband’s “kitchen,” the area where we keep the grill, smoker and other tools for his culinary tasks. To get that porch will take a lot of work and change. The verse above says we are being “built together.” That type of building requires us to be honest, to take a hard look at what should stay and what should go. In short, it will take work and change for us too and that might not be pretty. It might not be pretty, most likely it won’t but it will be worth it to be built into a “dwelling where God lives.”
Have you ever been on a construction site? They’re awful. It’s bad enough when it’s a new building. But when it’s an existing building being gutted and rebuilt it can be even worse. In either case, no one worries about cleanliness or litter. My husband is a painting contractor. He isn’t a slob. His office is often cluttered but the floor isn’t covered in empty diet Mt. Dew bottles, empty food wrappers or various other debris. Yet, when I go to see him on a site he may well be surrounded by all kinds of rubbish. Those things, those leavings of the people working there are only the beginning. At the same site there are bits and pieces of wood, metal, nails, screws, etc. There is dust and dirt everywhere. It’s hard to believe that in a few weeks it can go from looking like a landfill to looking like a beautiful home, office or church building.
Maybe you are very forgiving of your own faults and foibles. I am not. I want to be all clean and shiny, all decorated and as lovely as possible. I don’t want anyone to know what I was like before the reconstruction started or what I looked like at the early demolition phase. At this moment in my life I would say that I am still a work in progress. There are still empty bottles, gum wrappers and scraps that need to be cleaned up. I don’t want you to know about those either.
An actual building has no feelings. All cute children’s stories aside, there sweet little cottage around the corner does not tell stories to all who enter in. A building is a building, mortar, brick, wood and other inanimate objects. The building doesn’t cringe when we look at it in its halfway stage. Most human beings cringe.
I would bet that more than a few people share my fear of being known. Yet none of us gets from birth to home without encountering the loving but serious pruning of God. Our Father wants the best for us. In order to lead us toward that He has to remove the things that are in the way. One day I would like my back porch to extend all the way across the house to come right up against my husband’s “kitchen,” the area where we keep the grill, smoker and other tools for his culinary tasks. To get that porch will take a lot of work and change. The verse above says we are being “built together.” That type of building requires us to be honest, to take a hard look at what should stay and what should go. In short, it will take work and change for us too and that might not be pretty. It might not be pretty, most likely it won’t but it will be worth it to be built into a “dwelling where God lives.”
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