“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27) Isn’t that a wonderful promise from the Lord that we find in the book of Ezekiel? A completely renovated heart! It sounds lovely and peaceful and painless. But have you ever been involved in a renovation project? It is anything but peaceful. And it is anything but painless!
On August 31 my husband Keith and I moved from the home that we had lived in for 28 years to a home that has not been maintained or updated for more than 30 years. This means that we are now in the midst of house renovations. And when I say house renovations, I mean house renovations. I’m not just talking about slapping some paint on the walls and putting in new carpet. I’m talking about tearing things down to the structure kind of renovation! The heart of the house - the kitchen - is currently completely gutted. There is no floor (yes, I can see down into the basement), no sink, no cabinets. The more we tear out the more we discover things that are wrong structurally and the more we have to tear out.
All that should be in the kitchen has been moved into the dining area which you can barely walk through. It is a mess...dust is everywhere, and chaos reigns supreme. The work is hard. It is overwhelming. It is time-consuming. And I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. I am overwhelmed by the longing to escape. I want to run away and come home when it is all done. When everything is peaceful, clean and orderly again.
But in the midst of this mess, an awareness has been growing in me that all around me is a living picture of the renovations that God is doing in my heart. He has moved into my life and taken on the process of removing my heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh. This is not a surface renovation. This goes down all the way to the structure of my life. It is not easy work. It is messy, chaotic, and dirty. It is time consuming. It means that things in my life are displaced as He chisels out each area of hard-heartedness.
But it is also also very personal work. Our good and gracious Father is intimately aware of what needs to be done in the lives of His chosen ones, and He personally does the work. The Holy Spirit has “moved in” and is living in the midst of the mess and bringing order out of the chaos. He works tirelessly and patiently and is unsurprised by what lays beneath the surface. He is doing it right. He is doing it well. He is building something new from the inside out. And what will be the final result of this renovation project? A people that love and worship God and that live lives that walk in submission and obedience to Him. In other words, we will look like His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior!
In the midst of this move, this life changing adjustment, the chaos of my house renovations and my struggle in it all, the Lord is lovingly at work renovating my heart. He is chiseling away at my heart. It is hard. It is messy. It is painful. It will last my entire life. But I don’t want to run from this. I want to press in to the One who is doing this work.
And I am thankful. I am thankful and I rejoice because He is bringing order out of the chaos. He is making me into the image of His Son.
It is my prayer that in the midst of your heart renovations, you can see the loving hand of your Heavenly Father tenderly at work in you!
Grace and peace,
Cherie
Beautiful!! Yes, and He will bring beauty from the ashes, too. ❤
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