SCRIPTURE: Psalm 51:10,
12 (TM)
God, make a fresh
start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life… Bring me back from
gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!
STORY as told by Ian L.
Wilson:
London businessman Lindsay Clegg told the story of a
warehouse property he was selling. The building had been empty for months and
needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and strewn
trash around the interior.
As he showed a prospective buyer the property, Clegg took
pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to
correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage.
"Forget about the repairs," the buyer said.
"When I buy this place, I'm going to build something completely different.
I don't want the building; I want the site."
Compared with the renovation God has in mind, our efforts to
improve our own lives are as trivial as sweeping a warehouse slated for the
wrecking ball. When we become God's, the old life is over (2 Cor. 5:17). He
makes all things new. All he wants is the site and the permission to build.
OBSERVATION:
I particularly like how Eugene Peterson in The Message
renders Psalm 51:10 – “fresh start” … “a Genesis week” and then when it is
coupled with the tagline in Ian Wilson’s telling of the warehouse property
story to his London story we have the power of all scripture.
God doesn’t want just to dust off our life. God doesn’t want
to just rearrange the furniture of our soul. God doesn’t want to just clean the
dirt from the windows or vacuum the floor or change out a spiritual appliance
here or there … God wants to take a wrecking ball to the whole structure and
build something totally new of our life. God just needs permission to build.
Therein lies the crux of the matter – the permission to
build. We operate under the false assumption that somehow we do the building in
that God supplies the materials, but we do they labor. WRONG! God brings the
supplies … God designs the structure … God lays out the plans … God builds …
all we do is make ourselves available, we provide the site.
As the song goes, “All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I
freely give; I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live” so shall
our lives … if we but surrender … that’s the tough stuff … giving up control.
Much like the cars that will parallel park themselves the scary part is taking
ones hands off the steering wheel and simply allow the car to do its thing. We
are called to take our hands off of our lives and allow to God to take control
… total … complete … absolute control.
It is not about understanding it. It is not about making
sense out of it. It is not about knowledge or comprehension. It is about God
building something totally new in our life!
PRAYER:
From the foundation up, build something totally new in us.
Gracious God, surprise us with something beyond our imagination.
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