Under Construction

I believe that there is a difference between the moment I was saved and the moment I became a Christian. Salvation was the moment when I first received that the debt for my sins was paid for by the blood of Christ and I was adopted into the Kingdom of Heaven. Becoming a Christian was when I decided to surrender my life to him and follow his desires and not my own. Since the second transformation, which I believe is just as important as the first, I have been consistently under construction, complete with demolitions and renovations. It’s easy for me to dwell on what still needs to be knocked down and rebuilt, but sometimes, God shows me how far he’s brought me since he started his work.

Paul said that anyone who was in Christ is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). Salvation makes us new spiritually and instantly. Surrender makes us new in our lives and over the course of a long process.

The reward for choosing God’s plan over ours can sometimes not appear to be a good thing. We had blueprints of our own when we started out, after all, and those are hard to abandon. God will call us to be who he intended us to be, and that’s not always what we intended or what our family had in mind for us. Sometimes he pries the desires out of our hands before he changes our minds. Even if we know what he’s doing is better, we still mourn for what we know we won’t get. There are things we have always wanted that we have to accept we may never have.

What God has been teaching me recently is that what I imagined, though perfect in my mind, would always have flaws. I could never design something perfect completely and so there were gaps needing to be filled. Some things I was just plain wrong about, and now that I can see them, I’m glad they didn’t last. He has shown me that, though different from what I imagined, his creation is good.

Clinging to what I had wanted, despite it’s uncertainty, and focusing on what still needs work, only blinds me from seeing the good in God’s new creation. I have recently been called to embrace what God has given me. Specifically embrace, nit merely accept, to find the blessings in it, and take captive the thoughts that slide toward what I wanted and didn’t get.

This week particularly, I am reminded of many things that I had wanted that would have gone terribly wrong, some things that I never imagined could change for the better but have, and also that the things that seem like losses now, won’t in time.

Paul said that those who are in Christ are new. Christ said we can abide in him and he will abide in us. The change won’t come apart from him. Like branches cut from the vine, we will wither and die without him (John 15:5).

God didn’t say being in him will change our circumstances, but it will change us. It will bring joy where we couldn’t find it, bring love where we held bitterness, set us free from the things we made our masters, and give strength when we thought we had none.

To know what he is doing, understand his purposes, and hear the promises for our future, to be changed at heart, we have to abide in him. Study his word. Talk to him. Listen to him. Never stop searching and never stop being open to change. God isn't going to abandon us, sometimes that's comforting, other times just annoying, but it's always better. I'm thankful for how I have been transformed and I'm glad for the times I went voluntarily. I don't know what else God plans to do with me, but I will try to embrace whatever it is.