I am a busybody. I will admit it, I like always having something to do. Whether that means taking a walk, writing a letter, cleaning house, baking a cake, or going to coffee with a friend, I refuse to let myself get bored. I was thinking today about how I will never be "done." Perhaps I may finish a project, but I will never get to the point in life where there is nothing left to do, no one left to talk to, not another mountain to climb. While at first, this thought was exciting, I realized how exhausting it also seemed.
I began to think about my life, where I've come from and where I am going. About how there have been som many times in my life that I thought I was doing one thing, and God came in and changed my direction. There have been other times that I have been trying to do exactly what God told me to do, and then failed. I am so hard on myself sometimes, and I beat myself up quite a bit. I then began to think of the growth process. God leads each person on a journey, to grow each and every day, through the victories and the failures, the laughter and tears, people coming and going, hurts and joys, disappointments and excitements. I thought, "That is such a beautiful process." It brought me back to a journal entry I had all the way back in September. If you will allow, let me share it with you.
I journaled on the verse Hebrews 10:14 which reads, "For by a single offering he [Christ] has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." (ESV). In the NLT it reads, "For by that one offering, he made perfect those who are being made holy." At first, my reaction to the verse was, "Wow, that's awesome! Christ made us right with God forever!" But God was not done speaking to me. Here is what I wrote that day:
"'Those who are being made holy' includes me - it means the Christians. It was by Christ's sacrafice on the cross that He made us perfect in the Father's eyes. Each day as a Christian is part of the perfection/holy-making/sanctification process. Each day as we seek God and learn to walk in His ways, we grow closer to perfection. Though we will never by 'perfect' in this life, God sees the end result. Jesus' blood, His sacrafice, is the lense through which God looks at our lives. He sees no stain
on us. He sees exactly who He made us to be in complete perfection. However, that does not mean we stay just the way we are. The verse says we are being made holy and that is process that we must take part in! C.S. Lewis writes about this is Mere Christianity. He quotes another author in comparing the sanctification process to a house. When Jesus enters our lives, He makes repairs on the house that we already knew needed taken care of (like the leaky roof or bad gutters which could be a problem with lying, gossip, etc. that we knew needed addressed). But then He does something strange. Jesus starts tearing down walls and pulling apart framework. What we thought was a decent little cottage (a simple life as a "good Christian"), is meant to be a magnificent palace which He is building to come live inside himself. It's either all or nothing with Christ. We either accept Him as all He is and let Him make us perfect like himself, or we reject Him altogether. There can be no lukewarmness here - the Father sees us as perfect and the Son is going to make the real deal match the Father's vision. It's almost like the Father sees the house's blueprint, then Jesus got the contract signed with His blood, and now the Holy Spirit is helping to build us to look like the blueprint that the Father desires. I don't want to disappoint the Father or make the Son's sacrafice go to waste. While at times part of me desires to build the cottage, the palace must be my aim. It's a hard, long process, but it's attainable through Him who gives me strength."
on us. He sees exactly who He made us to be in complete perfection. However, that does not mean we stay just the way we are. The verse says we are being made holy and that is process that we must take part in! C.S. Lewis writes about this is Mere Christianity. He quotes another author in comparing the sanctification process to a house. When Jesus enters our lives, He makes repairs on the house that we already knew needed taken care of (like the leaky roof or bad gutters which could be a problem with lying, gossip, etc. that we knew needed addressed). But then He does something strange. Jesus starts tearing down walls and pulling apart framework. What we thought was a decent little cottage (a simple life as a "good Christian"), is meant to be a magnificent palace which He is building to come live inside himself. It's either all or nothing with Christ. We either accept Him as all He is and let Him make us perfect like himself, or we reject Him altogether. There can be no lukewarmness here - the Father sees us as perfect and the Son is going to make the real deal match the Father's vision. It's almost like the Father sees the house's blueprint, then Jesus got the contract signed with His blood, and now the Holy Spirit is helping to build us to look like the blueprint that the Father desires. I don't want to disappoint the Father or make the Son's sacrafice go to waste. While at times part of me desires to build the cottage, the palace must be my aim. It's a hard, long process, but it's attainable through Him who gives me strength."The Christian life is a process. Each day we have to get up and get back to work. Though we may fail at times, the important thing is that we keep building. I find encouragement that God sees me as I am becoming, not always as I am right now. He sees the big picture, not just one section. I think that is sometimes also why God is greived when we arent walking in the plans He has for us. He can see everything that we are created to be in perfection, yet we are settling for so much less. We need to begin to look at life in light palace God is creating us to be, not the cottage that we may desire. In Psalm 127:1 it reads, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain."
Lord, I pray that I would ever get caught up in building the life I want rather than the life you have created me for. Help me to see the process as beautiful, even during the times that I get tired and want to quit. Train me to walk in your ways and guide me by the hand. Take my life Lord, let it be built according to your plan.
