Remodeling, Part 2

I’m not that dedicated a housekeeper. Cleaning and dusting don’t make my day. (I’ve written about this before…) But as we are starting our third week of remodeling, the mess is starting to get to me.

The worst part of the remodeling isn’t the contractors arriving before I’ve had a swallow of coffee. It isn’t even unbearable to have to eat standing up because they are working in the kitchen and dining room. I don’t mind too much being without window treatments or blinds. I can put up with the noise. The constant clean up of dust and debris (inside AND outside) gets to me. And worst part? Thinking something is "clean", only to discover it is covered with a thin film of dirt - - AFTER I have sat on it or served food on it.

What gets me through day after day of mess and grime is the promise that one day it will be FINISHED! It will all be new and clean, built according to the builder’s plan. No drop cloths. No smelly paints or varnishes. Just clean!

It doesn’t take a nail gun to get this lesson through my thick skull.

I remarked to a friend recently that our remodeling experience was giving me all sorts of parallels relating to personal holiness. She expressed concern for my sanity, but heard me out.

The process of "sanctification", or becoming more holy like the Lord God, is never easy. Forming new habits, changing old and harmful behaviors, exhibiting kindness when I don’t feel like being kind, gentleness when I want to pop someone upside the head are all good goals. But even more than these human attempts at being a better person, I find that I need to relinquish my heart and mind more and more to the control and keeping of the Holy Spirit.

To do this, I must examine, reveal -- and keep revealing -- the matters of my life that have not been given over to God. Then, I need to discern where God wants me to go from there. This is all done by God's own power through the Holy Spirit, and not my own. It takes repentance: recognizing how wrong I am, admitting it before God and then moving on – to a new level of holiness. It also means allowing the Holy Spirit to work and not refusing His work within. The Holy Spirit will not barge in uninvited; He won’t pry my fingers off of a favorite sin. He waits. And as I carefully, sometimes grudgingly, and sometimes joyfully destroy another barrier between God and myself, He always responds by remolding and remaking me to be closer to the image of God.

So here at home, as the dust settles every afternoon and I again get out my broom and dustpan, Shop-Vac^TM and sponge mop, to clear away another layer of grime, I have to smile. It’s a daily reminder of how much I need my Savior. It’s a visual aid towards remembering I’m not "there" yet…

Here I am – holy dust pan and broom in hand… Thank you Lord, for meeting me where I am.