Renovation

We are in the middle of a major remodel of our church. It was time. Our sanctuary is over 50 years old – just a little older than I am right now.

Both of us have begun to show our age.

Don’t get me wrong. The church was still beautiful. The wood features and stain glass windows are timeless. The members of our church have worked hard over the years to maintain our facilities and keep them clean.

But if you looked closely, the church’s age was showing. Walls were chipped and broken. The doors were covered with water stains. The window sills had rotting wood. Most of us, honestly, didn’t see or realize the need for the renovation until it was pointed out to us. We suffered from a form of what I call “clutter blindness.”

Clutter blindness is when you have a table or a corner in your home where junk is piled up. The problem is that you see it every day and get so used to it, you become blind to it. We all have parts of our homes, garages, or offices that look bad or are a mess, but we have become so used to it, we don’t even notice it anymore.

The same phenomenon happens with the wear and tear on our homes. It happens so gradually, we don’t even realize that they have become outdated or run down. We don’t realize the need for renovation.

It even happens in our hearts.

Sometimes we think that when we come to faith, all the mess and ugliness in our hearts and lives will suddenly disappear. Though we become a new person through faith in Jesus, we still have an old sinful nature. We still have clutter and dirt in our hearts and lives.

As believers, we often fail to see the bad habits and bad behaviors which slowly have crept their way into our hearts even after years of being Christians and going to church. We get used to them. We don’t even notice them. We get lazy in our faith.

We consider ourselves good, church-going people and so become blind to our tempers, our pride or our gossip. We rationalize our drinking. We fail to see the clutter and rotting wood in our hearts.

The life of a Christian is a life in need of constant renovation. As we grow in our understanding of God’s love and forgiveness, the Holy Spirit leads us to do the hard work of tearing down the old, rotting wood of bad habits and bad behaviors in our lives. He leads us to repent and renovate.