Living in the Messy Middle

Living in the middle of renovations is challenging. It’s exciting to envision the finished room, but when the room needs touch-up paint, furniture is everywhere else in the house, and your picture frames are piled on top of one another, reality is messier than the vision.

I’m in the middle of one of those renovations now. It’s just one room, and it is just phase one of a much larger project. Even a small renovation can disrupt the rhythms of everyday life.

• There’s no flooring in the room right now–just bare cement floors.
• The first coat of paint was just completed last week.
• The internet service provider came out today to relocate the access box so it doesn’t get damaged in the renovations.
• New carpet will be installed next week.
• New baseboards will be installed after that.

There’s still prep work to be done, and I feel like my house is just random piles of stuff. It will be so nice once the room is complete and life can start to be organized again. Well, until the rest of the flooring is replaced throughout the house and I have to temporarily relocate most of my stuff for that.

Spiritual transformation is a lot like this. Our lives can get pretty messy in the process of becoming more like Christ. We know He is at work and that His work is good, but the chaos of life and change can be a lot.

We often celebrate the finished product, but we don’t always talk about the process. The tearing out. The rebuilding. The waiting. The mess that happens before things are completed.

Sometimes, the changes are so small and almost invisible. Other times, they are painful and disruptive. We can find ourselves wondering what the bigger plan may be and how long it will take to get there.

We are reminded in James 1 that the testing of our faith creates patience and endurance. It makes us stronger:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,  for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1: 2-4

A phrase that has been made popular is, “God will not give you more than you can handle.” This feels good, but it’s not entirely accurate. The truth is that God does sometimes allow things that are more than we can handle on our own. The promise is not that we will never face more than our own strength can carry, but that we are never without His presence and strength.

The story of Job is a good example of this. He experienced tremendous loss with the death of his children and the destruction of his wealth and possessions. Through it all, he wrestled with pain, confusion, and questions, but he continued to trust God in the middle of his suffering.

The apostle Paul also demonstrated this in his testimony about the thorn in his flesh in 2 Corinthians 12. He prayed that the Lord would remove this thorn, but God’s response was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul recognized, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10)

God will give us strength to endure, and we can trust Him. We must learn to see our trials as tools for transformation and sanctification, to make us more like Christ.

The goal of a renovation is not the mess. The mess is evidence that something is happening. In the same way, the challenges of life are not wasted when we allow God to use them. He is repairing and rebuilding us into the people He created us to be. He never abandons the project.