I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the saying before, “You don’t have to clean up to get in the shower,” but I think that sometimes we feel like that when it comes to God. If we could just make ourselves presentable…if we could just overcome that one sin…if we could just manage to get to church more consistently…then perhaps we could approach God the way that we want to. I love that it doesn’t work that way.

One thing that I love about God is that he meets you right where you are. I once heard an analogy that illustrates this point. How do you know someone lives in a house when you drive by it? If nobody lives there, generally there are some signs. The grass is overgrown. The paint may not look so hot. There may be a cracked window or something like that (obviously this wouldn’t be the case in a nice housing community but go with me!). When somebody moves in, the whole place doesn’t look perfect overnight but there will be signs that someone now lives there. The lights will come on. A car is now in the driveway. The grass gets mowed. There are now signs of life when there used to not be any. This is what Christianity is like.

When God comes into your life, everything doesn’t change on the spot but things do begin to change. Some joy enters your heart. Your prayer life begins to come alive. Your desires begin to change for the better. You will always be a work in progress but it’s clear that there is now life where there used to be death. Sometimes I wish that I was already the finished product but that will not be the case on this side of heaven. I started as a lowly cottage but God is working on a palace that he desires to inhabit (C.S. Lewis). He loves each of us as we are but too much to let us stay that way. There are walls that need to be knocked down. Rooms that need to be changed and redecorated. Christianity is not a finished product religion but rather a work in progress relationship. I love the journey and I simultaneously long for the day when I’ll stand before the throne perfectly complete before my Savior.