it's like this...

You live in this house.  The house is... well... your life.  It has screeching windows, nasty carpet that smells like day-old pizza, uneven stairs you trip up all the time, and a roof that leaks when it rains.  It really needs repairing.

Then you get saved.  And when you do, you're inviting Jesus to come into your house and fix it up.  You wake up one morning and Jesus is working on your awful, screechy windows.  He smiles and says, "Oh, you're up!  I made breakfast."  You sit down at the table and He places a big 'ol stack of pancakes, dripping with Betty Crocker syrup, in front of you.  So you sit there and eat and talk and laugh with Jesus.  It's great.  Then you head off to school and Jesus goes back to working on your windows.

You come home to find your windows in perfect condition.  No screeching, no shattered glass-- just perfect.  You're like, "Wow! Thanks Jesus!"  Same thing happens the next day.  You get up, hang out with Jesus, go to school, and come home to find He replaced your repulsive carpet with shiny hardwood floors that are just right for sock-sliding.  "Hey Jesus!" you say, "I can see my reflection!" and He laughs and says, "No, you see My reflection."  And you say, "Wow, You're right!  Cool!"  Eventually, Jesus restores everything you hated about your house.  Pretty amazing, right?

Well then one day you come home from school and Jesus is about to take a sledge hammer to your favorite wall.  "Jesus!" you yell frantically, "Wait!  I like that wall!"  And Jesus says, "I know.  But I don't.  It's gotta come down."  And so He slings the sledge hammer over His shoulder and knocks a huge hole in the wall.  Ow, you think, This hurts!  I loved that wall!  You wake up the next morning to find a new wall in its place.  You stare at it for a while.  It's different, yeah, but it's actually not all that bad.  In fact, it's way better than the old one.  "Jesus," you say.  "I really like this new wall."  "I know," He says, smiling.  "Me too."

See, when you invite Jesus to come into your house-- your life-- to make a few renovations, He doesn't leave after He's done fixing what you thought needed to be fixed.  He keeps making changes, even if you don't like them at first.  Because in the long run, Jesus knows what's best for you.

Jesus took the sledge hammer to one of my favorite walls this week.  That wall has a picture on it-- a picture of a guy named Zach.  I spent so much time daydreaming about him that I didn't take time to hang out with Jesus.  And Jesus didn't like that. So... He took it down.  I didn't like it at first.  At all.  It took me four days to quit standing in front of the Zach-wall so Jesus wouldn't tear it down. But on Thursday, I finally moved out of His way.  And He swung His sledge hammer and down it went.

But when He put up a new wall-- a new one with His picture on it-- I examined it for a moment and said, "Jesus, I actually kind of like this wall.  A lot!"  He smiled and said, "I like it a lot, too."

"Still, God, you are our Father.  We're the clay and you're our potter: All of us are what you made us."
--Isaiah 64:8

*note: I did not come up with the cool house analogy.  That would be Michael, the cool dude that lead the youth sessions at my church this week. :)