Where I work, there is a television in the break room. It’s on all the time. Consequently, I get to see bits and pieces of the many home shows that are popular now. I enjoy the glimpses I get of the planning, the demolition and construction phases of the renovation, and especially the unveiling of the final product. After all the expense, the difficult decisions, the waiting and anticipation, it’s a joy to see the homeowner thrilled with the outcome. Imagine the joy that God feels when He transforms a child of His!
In this metaphor, we are the home. But unlike an ordinary home, we have agency in the process. God, the designer and builder, respects our choices. Any designer can impose his or her own vision on a home. A good designer will bend that vision to what we need and what we want. A great designer will impart his or her vision to us. And in a flash of insight, that vision turns out to be what we really needed and wanted all along but didn’t know it. That’s our Lord.
In Eden, our original parents rejected His vision for them. The Children of Israel, whom God delivered from Egypt with a mighty hand, rejected His vision for them. For us, it’s a matter of exchanging the vision we have for ourselves with the vision He has for us. Only He can conduct us from where we are, just as we are, to His vision of what He would have us to be. He has the master plan. He has the wisdom and skill for its implementation. The sooner I get in step with Him, the sooner we will have the thrilling masterpiece He has in mind: conformity with the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.
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