Getting started
The best words to express my feelings right now are MAJOR FRUSTRATION! Ever since our house burned down four months ago, there has been one challenge after another. Anita’s injury and surgery from jumping from the second story of the house was the first challenge. The loss of the house and contents was the next. The restrictiveness of her injuries, complicated by my breaking my wrist in five places two weeks later added yet another. All of the rig-a-ma-ro of listing for the insurance company, dealing with all that stuff and still trying to have a somewhat normal life is starting to take its toll.
Now, faced with rebuilding, we had to choose a house plan that would fit our needs and our location, find a builder who is honest and upfront, and then try to weave all of that together and get started. It’s almost there but just not yet. Today I’m setting up for a washer and dryer, waiting at this very moment for them to be delivered. It’s raining cats and dogs to boot. I can’t do the electrical and plumbing outside that needs to be done to use all this stuff. The last thing I need today is to do a dance with the electricity in the rain. I was suppose to get ten loads of dirt on the house pad today, but unless the trucks want to sink to China, that’s not going to happen. Man, does this sound like a pity party or what? Hey, I could go on but I won’t.
I said all of this to make a point. I know as well as I know my name that if we would just get started, things would be more productive and life would automatically seek some balance.
I believe that there is a world of church members who feel the same kind of frustration. Most of us know and feel that there is something more to what we are about, but many of us just can’t get started. We want to, but something always seems to be in the way… and we get frustrated with ourselves. We’ve been told how to stack all the building blocks together to build a Christian life and they never seem to stay put. Before we get them up, taking a little shape, something comes along and knocks them over.
But, do you know what? The Christian life is not like building a house or recovering from a happenstance in life. The Christian life is about a single block, not a box full. FAITH! Faith is the only block. God calls us to faith and it is FAITH that builds us. God works through our faith to bring about His purposes in this world. One of which is building us. So, the single most important element for us is to lay down the hammer and nails and let Him do the building. Getting started is as simple as “Letting go and letting God.”
A heart that is soft and pliable will respond to the leading of God in FAITH. If God shoves a block in our path, we gather it and build with it. It is His block, not something conjured up by list makers. God knows plenty about building. He started out with nothing and look what He’s done. Certainly, through people of faith, He can do what is necessary to make us into something useful for His Kingdom.
For me and my frustration, I need to get over it. For all of us who are frustrated and restricted by the failures of life, we too, need to get over it and let God have it. We all might just see a new light shining through the window very soon.