“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”
Ephesians 2:7-10 MSG
Have you ever been part of a remodel project? We are in the midst of one right now. Our home was built in 1910 and has had lots of owners over the years. Currently it has a bathroom and a laundry room, both of which were not indoors at the time the house was built!
The kitchen is galley style and not very big. At a quick glance its super cute. White cabinetry with silver handles, brown tile, brown sink, and white appliances. Cosmetically speaking the kitchen was livable, but when the Sheetrock came down we were able to see wiring not done correctly, pieces of flooring cut out and much more!
Anytime you decide to start something there are a lot of steps for the complete process. Walls have to come down, wires have to be fixed, floors and walls patched, textured, painted and new items moved in. Demo day can come with the excitement of the promise of change that is to come. A week or two in when all kinds of progress is being made sometimes it feels slow. There is debris with both the fall out and the progress.
Man if this isn’t true of our lives we want the finish product; the weight loss, the spouse, the kid(s), the relationship mended, the job, the fill in the blank. The beginning can seem exciting, the progress slow and some days you think a lot was done, but its not visible to anyone. Once everything is pealed back you are able to fill the cracks, plug the holes and start to see a picture of what is to come.
My prayer for you is that during your season of remodel, renewal and refreshing, that you will “join him in the work he does” and that you will see all that God has for you. “Search me, God, and know my heart;” Psalms 139:23a NIV The finished product is so much better that we can even imagine, but it takes faith, work, hope, and “trust him enough to let him do it”.
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