Ponderings of an always trying, always failing, always forgiven Christian.

It occurred to me yesterday as I drove back from my school’s Senior Breakfast(which was awesome), that the Holy Spirit is an incredible carpenter. It hit me when I looked over as my best friend and I drove through Liberty City (we were straight up lost) and saw a completely run down building that had a sign out front that read : “Coming soon- Publix!”

As I looked at the building, a few things ran through my head. Will they just demolish the building and start from scratch? Would it be more cost effective to just renovate the already existing building? If it isn’t more cost effective, how badly is the building screwed up?

As much as I hate it when Christians use extended metaphors, here goes…

People are a lot like buildings, with the Holy Spirit acting as the construction crew. When I let sin start to crawl into my life, its a slow deterioration. A leaky faucet here, a few glances too long at a girl there. Its the little things that start to crack at the paint job and the foundation of the building. When we start to neglect the responsibility we have to maintain ourselves, things start to go haywire.

I’ve been in my share of houses that looked perfectly fine from the outside, but upon entering, there is so much clutter and general disorder. Then again, I’ve been in a few houses that look rickety from the outside, but are quite pimplicious (copyrighting that word) inside.

Sometimes when we need the Holy Spirit, he has to tear everything down and start from the ground up. He has to rebuild us because what we made ourselves to be is a complete loss. Sometimes we have some good qualities down, and its just easier for the Holy Spirit to change a few pipes, throw on a nice paint job, and viola!

It amazes me (as I think it does any Christian) when I look back and see the person I was and the person I am now. When I look at that, it makes my faith so much stronger. I become a testimony to myself to how powerful our God is. I am also able to see the person I can be for God, and avoid the misgivings that lead me down the path to being a disheveled mess of a building again.

I think every Christian can take a hard look at themselves and see where sin has crept into their lives (however small it may be). Of course, we’ll never be perfect (thank God- too much pressure for that), but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try our doggone hardest to make God proud.