He is Building a House

Once a facebook friend posed the question: If you were a house, what would you look like? In the midst of a day with my actual house begging to be cleaned, I fiddled around on my phone for half an hour, searching for a house that matched my personality (We’ve all been there, right?).

This is what I came up with:

I am obsessed with the color yellow. I love vulnerability, and windows, and new life, and life in process, and I value beauty...and tend to find it in unlikely places. It was easy to find a house that made me feel known.

However, I am actually not this house. I’ve realized that recently.

Our landlord is selling our current rental and we have to be out in January. Something moved us, call it faith or insanity, to believe we could celebrate Christmas in a new place. Instead the process has been one let down after another, with the Lord whispering, “Can you still believe?” Last weekend we were at a conference and I firmly believed, but in the quiet moments, back home in my mundane life, I’m not so sure. I ebb and flow in faith and fear, stability and shame, feeling like I don’t want to be productive in my life, but hidden in a closet with chocolate and chips because somehow junk food makes uncertainty a bit more more manageable.

I’ve been a Christian for awhile now, in various seasons of shifting and unknowns, and it doesn't get easier. Like, shouldn’t I know how to do this by now? Yesterday I found myself asking God, “What do you want me to do?” Because that’s the thing, what caused harvest in the last season won’t work in another. God is teaching us reliance, not formula. Still, I like a good formula.

Should I worship?

Should I war in prayer?

Should I fast?

While all of these things are well-meaning, nothing trumps waiting on the Lord in expectation. This is where our strength comes from (Isaiah 40;31). But, I have to say, waiting is the worst! I am so over waiting in my life.

Sunday morning I was reading the Bible because when God isn’t speaking clearly or showing up, that’s where I start. Our life scripture is Isaiah 54:13, “All of your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace," but I had never actually read the verse before it (or, at least it had never held meaning).

Tossed with tempest is how I would describe these last two months. Not comforted. Terrified? It’s almost foretelling though, as I wait for a house, that God is making me into a house. Before He began teaching me, shaping me, culturing grace in my life, I imagine this is a little more what I looked like as a house:

But now, He is laying a firm foundation of brilliant color, of priceless value, raising up impenetrable walls, repairing the gates of my life that once swung to and fro on a squeaky hinge into crystal. He is making me into a house to case His presence, to carry and reveal His glory, and the very seasons that have tossed me are the ones that secure my foundation. 

When I read this scripture, I let go, again, knowing that so much of what happens in the natural is currency in the supernatural, it’s painful process and toiling and uncertainty laid at the feet of an unseen God that builds up our spirits, and makes an impossible testimony. Over and over in Isaiah God is called Redeemer. My life is a mess right now, figuratively and literally. But, He is Redeemer, and I am learning to look at this mess, to look at myself as a house being redone by a master craftsman, and some of His best work is done when I wait well.

Now, I have to say, because God tells me this so often, He isn’t surprised by my humanity, by the days I resurrect a ten foot wall around my heart and say, “No! You cannot work on this part of my house today because it hurts and I can’t go there with you.” He tells me so often, “There is grace to be human.”

Yet, when we let Him work, when we choose not to distract ourselves, and just sit at His feet, this is the better thing (Luke 10:41-42).

Sometimes I want to say to God, “I’m just a simple girl. I don’t need to be made of rubies and gemstones! A nice brick house will do.” Still, when I’m feeling brave, when I’m at the altar in extravagant worship, I find myself praying really big prayers, “Use me. Build my character. Break the mold of what I think ministry looks like. Teach me to love like you. I’ll do whatever it takes!” Then, suddenly my life takes a very uncomfortable shape, unpredictable, messy (did I mention my life is messy?), tempest-like, and I’m waiting on the Lord, again.

There used to be a vacant lot across the street from my house, and one day a big truck dropped off lumber and brick in the center of it. As days passed, men showed up and began piecing it together, measuring, sanding, sawing, and laying a foundation. It was literally out my living room window, and every day I would watch the men work and God would speak to my spirit, “I am building something.” I thought He was speaking to me about revival or a personal ministry, but now I realize He is building me. In the mess, in the waiting, in the quiet trust, I am becoming like Christ, built upon Christ, Himself. I am the neediest fixer-upper there ever was, but He has a vision for my life, and He will not stop until the work is completed...and I will never stop waiting on Him.