Today rolls of faded and dirty 30-year-old used carpet (and carpet pad) sit stacked on the back porch. Inside, 100-year-old patched-and-worn poplar planks in our living and dining room are being topped with new, already-stained-and-finished oak flooring.
There’s a (loose but still applicable) parallel between the current floor renovation and the ongoing remodel of my own heart. In both cases, old is becoming new. As carpet is pulled up, so continues the rolling back of 40-year-old adult attitudes. As antiquated wood floors are laid bare, they also represent the exposure of my 60-year-old scuffed-and-patched assumptions. As a new oak floor is applied, I’m reminded that His Spirit dwells within me, making all things new!
The rooms are a mess during the construction process, of course. Likewise, a large part of my own ongoing transformation involves living in dusty, desert-like conditions (where burning bushes show up?) and listening for His voice there (prevailing Pentecost?). It involves agreeing with Him when He exposes, discards, changes, directs, protects, empowers…all as part of the sanctification process.
I won’t take time here to detail recent times I’ve sensed He was speaking to me (Kairos moments?), but they prove my life is orchestrated by grace, through grace, and for grace in a state of continuing transformation. My own recent burning bush incidents become life- altering when I actually let them be about Him instead of looking for some other explanation of my own making.
For the sake of illustration, the old floor seems exemplary as it is stripped bare, drilled/stapled/nailed, given a different identity entirely, and ultimately transformed and enabled with new potential. That’s my desire as well.
“Old things pass away; behold all things become new.” (II Corinthians 5:17, paraphrased)
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