Renovations

“If a man is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle the house leaks.” Ecc. 10:18

The Book of Ecclesiastes houses many sayings that have become common not only to the Christian world but to the secular world. They are words of wisdom in one collection contributed by King Solomon, son of King David.

Bruce and I have been in our current home for 25 years. Over the past 10 years our home has gradually aged and suffered the affects of the scorching sun and wind. For the past three summers we have had to put a lot of work into reviving, renewing and restoring. We kept putting off having windows fixed, rotten wood replaced and protective measures for our cedar siding. The results of not making the initial investment of time and money left us with overwhelming issues that needed immediate attention. Now that the work has been done and our home has new paint and windows it is nice to enjoy the new beauty and strength of our accomplishments. As long as we live in this aging home there will be maintenance required daily which needs to be attended to avoid the massive overhauls we had to endure.

The same is the case with our hearts. We have a spiritual home that we have invited the Holy Spirit to dwell within that needs daily maintenance. This daily maintenance assures our spiritual home doesn’t have leaky roofs allowing the elements of sin and adversity to fill up and flood our hearts. The pressure of past hurts and wounds can put an overwhelming amount of pressure on our hearts creating our emotions and spirit to sag and despair. To maintain a healthy spiritual home we must do intentional and daily work on our home so that neglect doesn’t infiltrate destroying what we have built and worked so hard to maintain in the past. We cannot be spiritually lazy in our relationship with God and must give it the proper attention required to keep our home strong, safe and secure from the elements of life.

In the words of King Solomon, let us not forget that spiritual defeat comes on the heels of spiritual laziness.