A few years ago, I had to replace the screen door on the back of my house, which seemed like a simple enough task. I'm pretty good with a hammer (and a whole host of other tools) and have done plenty of construction projects around my house and others', so I figured this would take an hour. Maybe two.
The problem was that my house was about 75 years old at the time and what was once square...ain't square any more. Over time, the frame of the house has shifted and sunk and tilted and turned so that the new door, fresh out of the box, just didn't fit.
It takes time to remedy a situation like this. It takes time to figure out what the best approach is - whether you should un-square the new door, re-square the frame, stuff a few shims in a few strategic places, or meet somewhere in the middle. Do it wrong, and you get a door that doesn't close at all. Or you get a door that closes, but there's a big gap somewhere. Or you get a door that hits in all the wrong places and you realize it won't be long before you're replacing the door...again.
The whole thing ended up taking almost three times as long as I'd planned for, but eventually, I got a door. A door that closes with minimal gaps and hits in good places.
It wasn't easy. I had to change the approach it felt like a thousand little times to get to the result that I was looking for, taking one thing that didn't work quite right and making a little tweak and then making another one and another one until that square door fit in the skewed hole.
I think about that door quite a bit when I think about what God is doing in the world.
It's so easy for us to think that it'll never work. We're looking at our skewed lives and thinking they can never fit into God's plan. We look at the ways that we're messed up and think we cannot be redeemed. We look at the whole project and think it's got to just be scrapped...tear it down to nothing and start over.
But God already knows it's going to take some work. God's already working on it.
He knows that He might have to reshape something here or there. That He might have to straighten up this edge or flatten out that rail or sharpen up that corner. He knows He might have to put a few shims in on that side, and tighten a little harder on the other.
He knows it might take a little longer than He would have wanted it to. That it will take a thousand little tweaks between doing and done. That it's going to look for a long while like it isn't working and then all of a sudden...
...it's a life. Not just a life, but a life that brings glory to God.
Paul told the Ephesians that God makes everything work in agreement with what He wants (1:11), and that's still true today. It's still true for us. God is making it work.
As messy, as challenging, as time-consuming, as frustrating as it can sometimes be, He's making it work until our broken, skewed, aging lives hold His plan just right - with minimal holes and hitting in good places.
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