Under Construction
Have you ever noticed how life can sneak up behind you and knock you down? Or maybe that’s just me…its not a comfortable feeling to find yourself on the sidewalk with skinned up knees.
We arrive on this planet…mostly unmade. We can come with brick and mortar from our generational background. Some junk just hangs around until we learn how to chisel it out of our bloodline and let God rebuild with better bricks. Life tends to place bricks where it will. Like building a brick building, you start with one brick at a time, one upon the other you place them where they need to be and soon you have a structure.
But then life itself seems to want to knock our bricks off when we aren’t looking. I hate that. We just got those placed like we wanted them and then someone, some tragedy, a divorce; drug abuse etc. takes a sledgehammer to our life. You get the point…our nicely placed bricks get knocked down.
God spoke to Isaiah, "And they shall rebuild the old ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations." (Isaiah 61:4) God is a Builder. Thank goodness he’s in the ‘rebuilding’ business because our whole life is a constant task of refinement, rebuilding and remaking.
He is a "Re-God." "Re" means to do again, make again, restore.
• He's a re-newer: He makes all things new.
• He's a re-plenisher, with "plen" meaning "to fill"; He fills you up again.
• He's a re-storer, with "store" meaning "provision"; He fills you up with provision again.
Stuff happens that builds wrong things into our lives. It has to be knocked down and rebuilt. Sometimes the knocking down part is a welcome experience and sometimes you never saw it coming or that it even needed to come.
God is kind enough to notice and help us remove that brick and replace it with a better one. Honestly this process stinks, and it can be painful to have your firmly mortared brick removed by the hammer of his Word or worse yet by a helpful person you wish wasn’t so helpful.
When life, other people or our own dumb mistakes leave us at the bottom of a pile of rubble it’s our Jesus that comes and scoops us up. He takes all that was hammered away and he cleans our wounds setting us upright again. It’s amazing how many times things will look all broken apart and Jesus just comes and starts to rebuild, restore and pretty soon He’s made all things new.
It’s just the worst when we are the very ones responsible for the mess. Condemnation is no ones friend. Who hasn’t screwed up something? I love that Jesus never condemns me but he looks at me with eyes that understand…truly understand; because he came and walked around in a clay suit and knows how hard they are to keep clean.
Haven’t we wasted enough time smashing our own bricks? Isn’t life hard enough without self-destruction? Sure I have misplaced bricks that need to be adjusted, but God knows where they are and will do a better job of pointing them out and helping me remove them than I can going haywire with my own hammer.
The sweet Holy Spirit is so great at this process. He’s gentle, kind and considerate. He knows just what needs to be removed and when; and he’s a pro at demo. I think its just time to let him do his job and stop trying to be him for others and for ourselves.
I feel like we need some encouragement; we all do. No matter what still needs fixing, replacing, or even if we need a total rebuild it’s ok. Take a deep breath. Relax. Jesus is in control; he has this. It feels hard and let go and love yourself. I know.
Father you are the great architect of our lives. Only you can rebuild us into what you desire us to be. Our own efforts can’t do it. Help us to trust you today and know you are working. You have the blueprints of our lives in your hands and are carefully examining them making sure to put each pipe, bolt and wall where it needs to be for your perfect plan to happen. As we trust you to rebuild us give us the grace to love what you are making. Give us a love for those around us that are in this same process. May we be buildings fit for your use bringing you glory with who we are.