Break Down

Sometimes it's easier to destroy something completely and start over than it is to fix the damage done.

Ever watch the show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"?  I know, it's a little 5 years ago.  The point is still valid.  For those who have been deprived of this sob-inducing goodness, the premise of the show is that the staff find a family in desperate need of a help in fixing their home.  The first episodes usually involved fixing the bones of an older or worn down home, and typically building an addition to help the family.  The more recent episodes rarely salvage much from the primary structure, because it's much easier to start from scratch than to work around what's falling apart.  Makes perfect sense.

Sunday at church Pastor Danny was speaking out of Haggai, which is a book I honestly have never had the desire to read.  When I try to read through the OT chronologically, I get discouraged by the Kings.  I've always known Haggai was there but it's never been high on my priority reading list.  God scolds the Israelites for being stupid yet again.  Hmmm...  In order to understand what's going on in Haggai, you have to understand the story of the Israelites.  You know -- the one where God had this sweet plan of incredible promise, and the people managed to screw it up because they thought they knew better.  Funny.  I seem to know that story well.  Too well, really.  It's my story too.

Luckily for the Israelites and for me, God is good.  He doesn't flake out just because the going gets tough.  That doesn't mean that He'll let us keep floundering in our mistakes or in the consequences they bring.  Sometimes it means He has to break down what we've put up.  Sometimes it means He has to break down what He's put up.  Either way, it's so He can rebuild well.  Maybe it's a friendship.  Maybe it's a relationship.  Maybe it's a hope, a dream or a passion.  Or maybe it's an entire being.

Either way, I'm ready to be broken.

Faithful Father

Yesterday I waltzed into church a few minutes late expecting to slide into my normal row surrounded by my normal congregation members and worship in my normal way.  Ha!  As soon as I walked in, one of the ushers, who happens to be the father of an old friend, seated me next to her and their family.  "Ok, God, I get your point," I muttered to myself as I remembered back on our broken relationship.  We were friends in high school.  WERE is the key word.  There came an end.  See, she managed to turn my whole group of friends against me, exiling me in the middle of my senior year.  I was less than thrilled with the situation, and despite our multiple attempts at repairing the riff created, we've only recently begun to talk.

When the sermon began, I was struggling to connect and focus.  As Danny discussed basic apologetics from the pulpit, my mind began wandering.  I'd heard this before.  Then I realized what I was doing.  I was allowing the amazing goodness of God to become commonplace.  I'd traveled beyond a place of expecting God to move in amazing ways to a complacency with His awesome power.  As we talked about prophecies made hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus and the improbability of it happening by chance, I was reminded that I take for granted the faithfulness of our Savior.  He promised that He would atone for sin.  He promised that the King was coming.  He promised to provide for His people.  And He did.

I've got plenty of people in my life who have failed me.  In fact, I was sitting right next to one.  The beauty and love of God's perfect faithfulness is made unbelievable by our inability to show the same quality.  No person can ever be as faithful as God is.  What He says stands and it doesn't change, despite how much we may sometimes hope it will.  What you see is what you get with Him.

Thank goodness.  Actually, thank God.