Building

My dad is a contractor, so I think this whole 'building' thing is kind of ingrained in me. I've been around unfinished houses, shelves and remodels my whole life. I've also had the privilege of not only seeing the unfinished product, but also the polished, beautiful, final product.

Even though I have been around all of this my entire life, something dawned on me recently about building that I never realized before. I was out helping my dad at a house he's building, and I stopped in the middle of what I was doing for a few moments, and surveyed my surroundings. It was, quite frankly, a disaster. There were makeshift 'tables' that had been set up to collect whatever junk was lying around, tools and cords were everywhere, nails, sawdust and metal piping had their place on the floor. It definitely didn't look very appealing. But, I know enough about the process of building a house to know that one day, it will be gorgeous. It always is. And I always sit there in awe, of how what looked like such a mess, became a beautiful home.

Its so funny to me... I think God speaks to me when I am out in nature more than anywhere else. Maybe I feel a sense of freedom that no other place gives me. Maybe its the beauty. I don't know, but every time that I go to the country, I feel like I hear such vivid truths from God. This time was no different-- God spoke quietly to my heart, and he reminded me that that house looked like a disaster, and, it was a disaster, but, that is not the end. That house was slowly being changed, built, added onto, and one day it will be breathtaking.

So it is with our lives, or maybe the lives of those around us. How often do we get discouraged because we see someone in what looks like a hopeless situation, and we just give up on them? Or what about ourselves?? Sometimes we're our own harshest critic. We look at our lives and all we see is how far we still 'need' to go, but we fail to see how far we've come. We fail to realize that we are still a work in progress. Things might look messy, or disastrous, or ugly, but God is not through working in us yet. In fact, He won't be through while we're on this earth. Honestly, that is one of the most encouraging things to me. It reminds me of one of my favorite verses...

Philippians 1:6--Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ.

YESSS! Is there any promise better than that?! I am SO glad that my God does not give up when things look ugly and grim. He is outside of space and time, and He can see the 'final product' even when all I see is the messy present. What an awesome God He is!

Photo credit: tcarterministries.com

Beauty through the mess

So much running through my mind right now, I can't even express it all. I wish there were words and I wish it all made sense, but it doesn't.

I skyped with Esther this morning. She is so wise, and always knows what to say and how to say it.  Basically what I've realized regarding all that has been running through my mind is this: God does not want us to oeranalyze everything. Life can and is so simple when we just live our everyday lives with Him in mind, and put him first in all we do. What if we just woke up everyday and asked God, 'What do you want me to do today?' And we did it. What if we lived being guided by the spirit minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day?? How would it change our lives and the lives of those around us?

So what if people don't like us. So what if they don't respond to our phone calls and text messages. That doesn't give us an excuse not to continue loving them. God loves them, and therefore, so should we. People are fickle and flaky and they let us down and disappoint us. Why should we rely on them for our worth or value? We will never, ever be satisfied if we put people in the place where God should be. If we expect them to be perfect and to come through in every way, we will only be disappointed time after time.

Lately I've been realizing that there are a lot of people out there who do love me deeply, who I don't regularly talk to. Six months that would have blown my mind. It doesn't make sense that you wouldn't talk to someone that you care about so deeply, but I've learned that everyone shows their love differently. You CAN be friends long distance, without talking a lot. You CAN appreciate and love another person that you speak with only occasionally. I know, because its true in my life. I love each of my classmates from Montana, but talk to only a handful of them regularly. I want so badly to speak with each of them all the time. I want them to want to talk to me also, but life doesn't always work that way. And you know what? That is ok, because life isn't about me... people have commitments and families and things to do, and I am NOT at the center of their universe. So I am learning that its alright to be friends with someone without knowing every detail of every second of their lives. I'm learning to appreciate what I do have instead of focusing on what I don't have.

There will always be someone who is smarter, has more friends, has better hair, eyes, car, someone who can sing better, or who is more tactful. So? At the end of our lives God isn't going to look at those things. God is going to look at how we loved those whom he placed in our path, how we served Him and others. So why not make that our focus? Why not focus on other people, instead of on self? Why not learn to die to self, so we can live for Christ?

These things that I speak of are not by any means easy. They don't come naturally, but they are things that change the world. Love changes things-- the love of the Father. My prayer is that we can learn to love one another without expecting anything in return, without having an agenda or hidden motives. Jesus loved everyone, even those who spat on him, blasphemed him, betrayed him, and crucified Him. Surely we can love those in our lives. Jesus took the ultimate pain. One of the people that was supposed to be closest to him ended up thinking only of self and betrayed Jesus-- handed him over to be crucified. I have never been crucified, and I would venture to say, if you're reading this, you never have been either. Surely, we can learn to love through the trials that life brings.

God has been speaking to me recently about my over dependance on other people. He has asked me if I would be happy with Him and Him alone. If I never had a single friend for the rest of my life, if I never got another phone call or message, would I be alright? Right now, I prefer not to think of the answer. I am afraid of messy. I am afraid of just weeping and being completely open with my Father in heaven because I worry that the mess will be too big to clean up. I worry that others won't understand. Because of course, I am the only one with issues. That is what I believe so often. Is there anything farther from the truth?? Heaven forbid we're actually open with our struggles... because then people know we're not perfect *gasp.* We can't have that, now can we?? PLEASE. That is ridiculous. So my challenge to you, and to myself is this: Be open, be honest and love with everything you are.

A friend recently made the comment, in passing that 'fear is a choice.' I didn't say anything at the moment, but that statement could not be more true. Stop letting fear get in the way. Stop caring what people think. The tough truth is, there are people that don't like you. There are people that don't like me. And...? God doesn't look down on us from heaven and count the number of people that dislike us, and judge us on that account. And I am so glad about that. So glad that he looks at the heart instead of outward, physical things.

We serve a BIG God. A GOOD God. And we've only just experienced a fraction of a percent of that BIGNESS and GOODNESS. Thankful that He is way bigger than I could imagine. I would not want to serve a small God.

I apologize for the sporatic post, and for the lack of structure. But this is what is in my mind, and its not clean and tidy. But God is big enough to clean up the messes. Isn't that good news?