Pardon Our Metho-DUST!

If you’ve been to our church facilities in the past month you know that it’s a little crazy around here! My backyard has become the home to HUGE piles of sand, gravel, cement blocks, steel girders, and usually a back hoe or some other kind of big equipment. Josh has been having a hay day. In fact, Jack Price, trustee chair, has decided that the picture below, (where Josh is making his little “Scoop” backhoe from the Bob the Builder show make all the same moves as the big backhoe outside) needs to be called “Construction Supervisor.”

Personally, all this construction has put my allergies into overtime. Two months ago I didn’t even know I had any allergies… Now, with all of the Metho-dust around here, I’m constantly blowing my nose and sneezing. Oh yeah, and they had to take out the men’s room in order to put in the access to the elevator in the basement. That means we’re all sharing the ladies room now… Slightly inconvenient to say the least!

The construction of the new facilities isn’t the biggest inconvenience , though… It’s the destruction of the old facilities that blocks any new construction that the crew needs to do. So in order to build new, they have to tear down the old. And that’s where the biggest noises (like air-jackhammers) and the most dust, comes from.

But I know that the inconveniences of the irritated allergies, the temporary loss of our back yard, the sharing of the restroom, the presence of all the heavy equipment in our driveway, and the LOUD noise when the crew is trying to break through a hundred year old, load-bearing, two foot thick basement wall is worth it all… because I’ve seen the plans the architect has drawn up. I know what awaits us when we finish this project: a new entrance way, greater accessibility, three new bathrooms, and an elevator. The promised rewards far outweigh the current inconveniences!

That reminds me of the Bible passage where Paul reminds us of a similar eternal plan which puts our present inconveniences and sufferings of this physical life into perspective. He writes “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18)

Sometimes I get so fed up with the struggles and temptations of my daily life… especially the food related ones. But when I stop to realize that it is God Himself that allows those things because He knows the future plans He has for me… then it becomes easier to put up with the struggles and more meaningful when I choose to resist the temptations. He has good plans for me! And He’s not done with me yet! PRAISE GOD! And, like the construction at the church, some old things (like old habits, perhaps?) need to be ‘de-constructed’ before God can completely finish His work in me.

How about you? Have you become discouraged because it feels like you’ll never get through the ‘de-construction’ phase of your Christian life? Wondering if God will ever be done building the new you?

Then remember Paul’s comforting reminder that despite the temporary inconveniences, the best is yet to come!