New Life

Isn't it strange that it’s in a man’s nature to ‘fix’ things?  Men are so susceptible to that perfect project, whether it’s a car, boat, shop, job task, etc.  And of course, we start these projects with the greatest of intentions: time spent with family (“My son and I will…”), saving money (“Just a few dollars and …”), building it just right (“You just can’t buy them like this...”) or for us homeschool types -  EDUCATION (“Think of what we’ll learn together!” we say so happily)  As we have all found out, the project soon owns your time, energy and financial resources and in a moment of exhaustion you’re left wondering what lapse in sanity could have led to this moment!

I think that about sums up where each member of this work crew was recently...each looking at the other through weary blood-shot eyes over the morning coffee and wanting to blame him/her for sore muscles, blown budgets, and STUPID questions (“Because I said so!” has recently become the most widely-used method of parent-child communication on this project)  Who’s idea was it to involve the children anyway?  But I digress.

And then it happened…we rounded the corner on the destruction phase of the project and started to rebuild.  The foundation was poured and the utilities were trenched, installed, inspected and covered again.  The garage floor was poured.  The existing garage was prepped to interface with the new structure.  And, tomorrow, the framer begins to install the floor.  The rewards of our labor have now become apparent.  After all the destruction, comes reconstruction and NEW LIFE!  This is the moment of new life for the project.  This is the moment where we step back, re-focus and look into a future full of the rewards of our efforts.  This is when we remember the greater purpose behind each moment of temporary pain.  This is when we remind ourselves of all the great reasons we started this project.  This is when harmony returns.

New Garage Floor

 The Christian life is much the same.  For each Christian, there was a point where the ‘old man’ was destroyed and the ‘new man’ began to grow from the ashes.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Throughout the Christian life, there are many moments we lose focus and forget Who started this ‘Project’ and why.  We don’t see all the good things around us.  We can even become spiritually useless because of our propensity to focus solely on day-to-day grind of activities and ignoring the big picture.  What blessings in our life are the result of our hard work and commitment to the task?  What unique gifts and abilities do we have to use for the Lord because of the prior periods of destruction?.  This phase of the project is a reminder of the periods of awakening in the believer’s life where we look up and remember the high purpose for which we were chosen and gain encouraged by the signs of life around us, the signs of prior love and service to our God.  And then harmony returns…