We all like to appreciate the beauty and function of completed works. How many of us would give a second glance to the messy scene of a construction site? When I took this picture, it was the beautiful blue sky above that caught my attention at first. Yet, the contrast it made with the brown, arid, and rather unsightly construction scene on the ground was what kept whispering to my heart long after the picture had been taken.
Today, as I was preparing for a session that I will be giving on the relationship between Personal Holiness and Mission, it struck me that I still subconsciously turn away from the “messy construction” that God is doing in my soul. I prefer to distract myself with anything that is more beautiful – the gorgeous blue sky (an abstract, distant appreciation of the transcendent God), or other finished works that speak of God’s glory (reading about the saints, for example). But I have yet to learn to appreciate, much less love, God’s presence in the midst of messy construction. Ironically, it is exactly there in the midst of the noise, clutter and messiness of construction that God is uniquely touching me and transforming me.
It’s time, I think, for me to pray for the grace to be at home in the construction site of my soul, to be lovingly attentive to God’s presence regardless of how He chooses to be present, and to become joyfully content as a messy Work in Progress.
Journey of the Heart 