"What on earth is he up to?"

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself. --C. S. Lewis




This quote really struck a chord in me.  I thought, well God is like the most amazing and innovative architect you could imagine.  I find that in my own life lately, nothing seems like it is in its "right" place. I feel like someone has gone in and put everything where it wasn't and put some stuff in the trash....took some things out of the trash and unpacked some new boxes.  I feel like some wings have been added on and some stuff is being fixed and tweeked.  


All this is happening and at the same time, I am not too sure of what is going on. In fact the only thing that I can be assured of is that I am not in charge.  The question arises in me...why does God do the things that he does? Why can't everything be good for me? Why can't life just move at a pace that I can not only keep up with but perfect? Because of so many reasons, but the main one being, if we knew all that and God allowed all this perfection here on earth, we would never reach higher and go deeper within ourselves. We would never have a longing for heaven if we were living in it already and we would never get to be surprised if we knew the outcome of everything.


I have found in my own life that, God knows what he is doing!!! I know, right? crazy thoughts like that need to be censored! haha...but really God knows what he is doing and when something goes right instead of left and something goes down instead of up...there is a purpose.  It's funny, because I have heard it said and I say it myself--well, if I only knew the purpose I would feel better.  But would you? I find that timing is everything and that God leaves no stone unturned.  He loves us so much that he makes sure that we are ready to hear and understand the purpose.  We might not be able to accept it, but we can begin to hear it and heal from it and take it all in.  I have found that the truth will unfold itself in time! That God has a reason for withholding it.  I know that if I had heard some things too soon, my heart would have shattered even more than it was in that very moment. 


Why God are you doing all this house cleaning and rearranging right now, why can't you wait until I am ready--until I tell you where to move things etc.  Why can't all this house management that has to do with my house go one when I am ready? Well here's the thing, what makes you think you're not ready? What makes you think that you can't handle what is happening in the interior? God is moving and God is allowing--he knows what you can and cannot handle.  He made you and knows what is best. 


Now the interesting part of all of this is that he allows all of this so that we can reach out to him.  We can cultivate a relationship with him and as a trusted friend we can allow him to do what he needs to knowing that he has everything under control. But that takes time...so while he is rearranging the place, get to know him and reach out to him in all the confusions and the whys and the what's. Reach out to him and ask him to help you trust him so that you can be at peace with all that he is doing.  He will do it whether we want him to or not because the reality is that he wants us to grow and be the best version of ourselves.  The pain usually comes more in the resistance to God's will than in embracing it at all. So allow him to rebuild, reconstruct, remodel, heck build you up from the ground up--because the reality is and as I heard a great priest say in regards to Jesus building in us, "He was a carpenter, so he knows how to finish the job."