House Building

If you are like me and have been on this Christian journey for a while, it is easy to feel 'accomplished' or 'finished.' You do not resemble the person you were years or even months ago. Christ has conquered some of the bad habits and character flaws and you look and feel like a "good person." When this happens, I feel like it would be natural for things to now go smoothly. When troubles come along, like sickness, car repairs, people conflicts, money shortages, or new temptations, I am disappointed. These things were necessary to help me become a better person in my bad-old-days, but why do I have them now? The answer is that God is forcing each of us on. He's putting us in situations where we will have to be more patient, braver, careful, and more faithful than we ever dreamed of being before. It seems unnecessary, but that is because we have no idea of the person he is planning for us to be.

C.S. Lewis quotes George McDonald in Mere Christianity when he tells this parable: "Imagine yourself a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof. You knew those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But then He starts knocking the house about 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 than you thought of. He's throwing out a new wing here, putting in an extra floor there, putting up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

We may say, "I never expected to be a saint. I just wanted to be a decent, ordinary person," but this is a fatal mistake. Although it sounds humble, it's actually laziness and cowardice. Of course we never wanted and never asked to be made into the perfect person He is going to make us into, but the question is not what we intended ourselves to be but what He intended us to be when he made us. He is the inventor. We are only the machine. He is the painter. We are only the picture. His goal is to make us saints. We are the only obstacle to this process.

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis