Renovation


No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11

Some of my friends enjoy renovating homes – they can live in a mess for months, sometimes years because they have their mind set on the end product – a beautiful, modern room or home. I am definitely not a member of this ‘club’. I like my life neatly ordered. Any home I move into needs to be ‘ready to go’, so I don’t get distracted and inconvenienced by mess. The Lord has always been very good to me in this way, but maybe one day I’ll have to experience some mess. I hope it’s not soon!

As I write, the plaza where we live is under major renovation and it’s a terrible mess, not to mention noisy. However we are looking forward to a beautiful result. We count the months and look at the proposed pictures and wait for the completion date – which will probably be set back a few times if it follows the normal pattern of such works! However, when that ‘new face’ is presented to the world we will all forget the mess and inconvenience we’ve been through (unless we look back at our video record), and we will begin to enjoy the new restaurants, outdoor dining and the newly paved piazza and the waterside promenade.

At various times in our Christian life we will have to undergo spiritual renovation if we truly want to grow into Christ’s likeness. It is not pleasant, and at times it is very painful as our verse above says, but as we walk through past hurts and find God’s grace and forgiveness to heal those wounded places we come into a pleasant place of new peace and joy.

It’s not very nice when God shines his flashlight into the dark, hidden places of our soul and wants to do some renovation or spring cleaning. But afterwards the fruit of righteousness and peace that is the end result of the work is wonderful. We are released from things that bound us up, from unforgiveness that crippled us emotionally and sometimes even physically (Psalm 32:1-5), and from the lies that we have been believing. God only wants us to be whole and unhindered in our walk with Him. His whole aim is to bring us into the abundant life that Jesus came to bring us (John 10:10).

Yes renovation is worth the end result. Let us allow God to change us into His likeness. He can be trusted to take us gently through the pain and bring us to that place of beauty, joy and freedom.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I give myself to you afresh today. I ask you to do whatever renovation I need at this time. Shine your light into any dark areas of my soul and bring me into your likeness. I trust you to deal gently with me for you promised you will not give us more than we can bear. Amen.