But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded? I Kings 8:27King David saw God's heart to have a house to dwell in. But he could not see through the mystery that was hid in God. "Christ IN you, the hope of glory."
Nothing is impossible with God and there are no accidents when you truly endeavor to walk by the Spirit of God and not by your own ways. Not that I am always walking perfectly by any means, but it is no accident that I am here at my parents house working on getting it ready to go on the market.
When my dad bought this house 35 years ago, the basement was unfinished and there was no landscaping. As a family we pulled all the huge rocks out of the yard in order to put in grass. My dad finished the basement himself.
When we started working on the downstairs, every wall was covered in one way or another. There were tables and dressers and coatracks and boxes covering up every wall and most of the floor space. Except for little trails to get to the back wall, you could hardly even walk down there. Every day we went down there and started going through things. But we couldn't just pack up everything and take it out. We had to take the time to sort through things. We had a giveaway box, a trash can, a recycle bin for papers and then another box. The other box we called the 'reprocessing' box for those decisions that were a little less than obvious and needed more time to think on. Later we would go through the reprocessing boxes as well.
At first, after spending 8 to 10 hours a day in that room, it looked like we hadn't done a thing! Just looking at the room, it looked the same: messy. Yet we knew that we had done so much work in there that day. It made you feel like that room was never going to be a nice comfortable room. Yet, now, after a month of work, the family room is amazing. I was looking at the brilliant woodwork that my dad installed in this room when he first finished it:
The Lord showed me that I am like this house. Every day the Lord is working on me, to clean me up and make me a welcoming and inviting place, a place worthy of His Spirit to dwell within me. But to the naked eye, it sometimes appears that nothing is taking place - or even worse, that it is impossible for the Lord to do anything with me, such that I am.
I needed that encouragement. Like I said, there are no accidents, and it was no accident that my van is broke down, because there were times this last month when I would have "pulled a Jonah" and abandoned my assignment, jumped in my van and headed for the hills. There have been moments that have been extremely difficult, and that remind me, that I still have a ways to go before I have conquered the old man nature. I have yet to die completely to self.
Another thing I learned during this fast is that, the Lord could really care less about my weight. Ultimately, what difference would it make if I lost the weight and now weighed 135? None! I was so surprised to learn that lesson. My weight and especially my "ideal" weight, is so worldly. I have thought in times past that it was God's mercy that I have this extra weight on me. If I was skinny and cute (and I'm really cute when I am thin!) then I would just have all this worldly attention from worldly men and it might be more than I could emotionally handle. As it is now, they don't pay any attention to me and I can attend to the things of the Lord without distraction. I began to see that it was NOT the Lord's will for me to lose weight, that was my will. When the Lord wants me to lose weight, it will happen. (Not that I am going to go back to overeating the way I had occasionally before. If I can go without solid food for 21 days, I can go a couple hours past lunch without the need for some cookies and chips to "hold me over" Know what I mean?)
It is important to see spiritual lessons in even the mundane tasks that the Lord sets before us. He is the master builder and the master gardner and He knows the best way to prune us, so that the natural beauty that He created in us can shine through.
Dear Heavenly Father. Wow, You are so amazing and wonderful and merciful to care about the very hairs on our heads and the smallest detail of our daily lives. Thank you so much for never leaving me or forsaking me. I only want to do your Will in my life Lord. In Jesus name. Amen.
