Feeling a bit under the weather today. I went for my LAST physical therapy appt. today which I have been doing following my spinal surgery and wrist surgery. We have started renovation on our kitchen. It is an OLD house and in need of some work. Well they tore out a wall and the flooring down to the subfloor. The junk that was in the air is now in MY LUNGS. So I sounds yucky and feel even yuckier.
All this demolition remindes me of the work that God does in each of us as we age. As a product of the fall, we come to Christ with all of our CLOGGED pipes from years and years of neglect and inferior behaviors and beliefs. As we allow Christ access to our STUFF, He begins to pull out our "pipes" and replaces them with His. He reveals our PAINS and the LIES we believe about Him, ourselves and others. The only way this happens though, is if WE will cooperate with Him. They call it OBEDIENCE. He does it not to condemn us but to transform us into His image.
You would not believe the LAYERS of wallpaper that was on the walls. There is this one wall paper that is SO OLD, it has pictures of a pot-belly stove, and various other "General Store" items for the kitchen. It was actually a walk back in time. The smell was unimaginable. However, before you pass too much judgment on the poor kitchen walls, we do the same thing. Instead of taking our HURTS, FEARS and PAINS to God for His healing, we cover it up with new fancier wall paper in hopes that NO ONE will ever know what is underneath. Unfortunately, if we cover up these feelings while they are unresolved, it would be like wall papering over mold or fungus. Can't cover or bury anything alive. It just shows up somewhere else until it is resolved.
So it is for our good and God's glory that we allow Him to heal us. It is for our fellow believers and those in our lives that we allow Jesus to get rid of those rusty pipes and tear down our old wall paper. This way we will not contaminate all those that we love.
We are the beloved of Christ. Let walk like it.
I liked this metaphor, Beverly. I've seen firsthand what happens when a person doesn't deal with their "junk" and tries to cover it up; it doesn't just effect a few people, but many. It effects those around us, contaminates them, and then that contamination effects those around that person, too. Ripple effect. But ... if we walk like the beloved of Christ, it has a ripple effect, too. Thanks for the encouragement to walk like Christ's beloved.
ReplyDeleteI have heard it called a $50 response to a .50 question. I too have been on the receiving end of these "ripple effect" folks. Guess that is why we are told to walk in love. For those of us who have been healed, a heavy burden rest on our shoulders to be able to bare those harsh responses knowing that it is coming from a hurt place. I have heard it said that hurt people will hurt people.
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