Renovation

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to have your mind renewed?
(Romans 12:2)
The word study I use defines that word “renewed” as “a renewal, renovation, complete change for the better” (Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament). When someone renovates a house they don’t just replace the wallpaper with paint and change the carpets. They take out a wall, get new cabinets for the kitchen, rearrange the whole place so you hardly recognize it.
So what does it look like when you have your heart and mind renewed?

I think it’s a bit like what the Grinch experienced in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. The heart that he had was two sizes too small, but when he realized that Christmas was about more than just getting toys, his heart grew three sizes. It busted out that X-ray machine! His heart got bigger, and anyone who’s heard me describe the growth I’ve gone through in the past two years has heard me liken myself to the Grinch.

It feels like my heart has grown larger, but I attribute this to how the Lord has gone into my heart and revealed a lot of the walls that have kept me cooped-up and in the dark; walls that have allowed me to hide, to be self sufficient, to not need Him. But now there are less walls and I struggle to find places to hide now. There is a freedom in that, though. There are fewer places where He is not. The places where I used to retreat to, where I could take comfort in the shadows that were out of His light are almost non-existent. It’s like going from having your own bedroom to having to share a studio apartment: it’s all open space.

But one of the scariest parts of knocking a lot of walls out of a house is that there is nothing left to support the roof and you worry that whole thing will collapse. This house that I have worked so hard to maintain, the only one I’ve ever had and probably ever will have (I can’t just change hearts) and it feels like the whole thing is about the collapse around me. And in the fear of that moment when you hear the creaking 2x4s and see one of the last walls buckle, Jesus comes in and says, “I can hold this up, I can handle the load. Will you trust me?” You have no choice but to trust and no other recourse than to follow Him. You have found freedom in the open spaces that you would not trade for all the privacy in the world. So you trust that it won’t fall down, you trust that Jesus knows what is best and you trust that everything will turn out fine. And things do turn out fine. Only they may not have ended in the way that you would prefer or if God were taking your advice you would not have chosen that ending. But you have to keep trusting that Jesus knows your heart best, knows how much pressure it can take and when it’s time to test the strength that His presence has lent to it.

Jesus is still working on my heart. I’m not sure how many more dark places I have but I know there are a lot less. And I know that I’m being tried, but being enslaved to darkness is so much more a pain than freedom to the Father.