I Woke up motivated to accomplish many things today. For example, I had a call scheduled for 10 am to be interviewed, then I needed to drop the team to the big move-in (after the construction) clean we had too, plus attend an online Women conference while doing things around the house.
I started by doing laundry and some home organizing before the call. Then waited for it, it didn’t happen. So, I decided to drop the team at the house. On arrival, we see that the contractor and builders are still busy and there’s nowhere to clean yet. We had managed to clean upstairs yesterday for them to move in and have a place to sleep. However, everything was still on all floors for downstairs, from their huge machines, debris, and tools. They also keep walking back and forth from outside to inside, so we turn back and go back home.
I put my youngest down for a nap, eat my lunch, and instead of hanging the 1st load of laundry outside since it’s sunny, I decided to lay on the couch. I immediately fall into a deep sleep for maybe 1.5hrs and am later awakened by my youngest crying.
My body feels weird because it’s not used to napping, so now I feel tired and thinking about the 1st load of laundry still in the wash, with more rounds still to go. The dry ones from last week that still needs to be ironed, the kitchen that I had started but left hallway, the text from the client’s (interior designer) who wanted us to clean anyway because the client is moving in today. She wanted to clean in the mess anyway.
Have you felt like your life was like a construction site? With things left incomplete and always needing repair? We all have seasons when our lives feel like a construction site. Everywhere you go, you see the sign ” under construction”. Nothing is ever finished or feels finished. The dust never ends, you are constantly dusting.
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, New York: MacMillan Co., 1960, p. 160
I don’t like construction sites, to me they mean mess and disorganized things everywhere. However, construction sites symbolize process, improvement, and growth.
The thing is, our human eyes, focus on the mess we see at those sites. Therefore, we need faith and trust in God knowing and believing that He has every good and perfect intention for us.
For us to really experience the father’s transformation, we need to surrender our lives to the potter by laying our lives on that table for Him to continuously mend and shape. In addition, our lives need to be continuously changed by Him. We can do this by leaving all control to him and surrendering the building tools.
When I clean or start something, I always want to finish, doesn’t matter what time it is or what it takes. We all love enjoying the results without having to go through so many projects or processes. I want a beautiful bathroom with a waterfall shower for my husband and a huge bathtub for myself, , now you know my dream bathroom. However, I want to avoid the dust, the mess the builders leave, the trip to the construction shop, the banging noises, and the never-ending mess. We all want, what the realtors call the move-in ready.
Two days ago, the team did a post-construction clean-up which took 20 hours instead of 15, because the builders kept going back to the cleaned rooms in their dirty boots. So you couldn’t see the clean space. This bothered me, as I love seeing the sparkling perfect results. But now with them, I failed to see it, but also failed to see the beauty they were creating.
Why do we love escaping the process? We want to skip the learning experience which is something we can always hold on to forever as it guides us to growth.
I believe that our prayers should change to asking God to open our spiritual eyes to be able to see the beauty in the construction mess and process.
God is a master of mess, as He will create beauty out of it and make it perfect. So, let us not strive for perfection, He wants us the way we are and not in any way perfect.
Remember, His work in us is continuous. “He who began a good work in you will bring it into completion at the Day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6) HE IS STILL AT IT until the return of Christ!! Which only means, our lives are construction sites. And that, stopping to dream, create, live in the mess only leads to complacency and stagnation. When this happens, there’s no growth nor change.
Let us, therefore, allow the master planner, chief architect full access to our unfinished spaces and projects. Surrender to His design, floor plan, and plan, surrender to His all-powerful, all-knowing power. He is the one who’s got the final blueprint and trust Him to complete everything that He started in you.
Just think about the palace He is putting up and you’ll dance in the mess.
Psalm 127:1b- “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain… (Psalm 127:1b).”