When God Renovates a Broken Spirit

It’s a great feeling to scrape off old paint and watch the thirsty wood drink in a fresh coat or to demolish an old deck that was nothing more than an eyesore and a disaster waiting to happen and watch as new boards begin to reach into the backyard.

Renovation.  Taking the old and broken and restoring it and making it new.

Is God renovating your broken spirit?

Perhaps your spirit is a like a run-down house that’s falling in on itself, and it’s exciting and uncomfortable at the same time to watch God work; He may be doing things you don’t understand or things you’re not sure you’re going to like.  But you gave Him permission, even cried out to Him when you were in trouble when your spirit, your house, was crumbling.  No matter how hard you tried to fix it, you couldn’t.

So you step aside and take a seat on a hillside not too far away.  The scent of the sun warming the grass and the cool breeze on your skin comforts you as you rest and watch God work on you.

Still uncomfortable because change makes you squirm? Remember, this is God.  The Creator of all things, and He knows how to build you.  He did it in your mother’s womb, and He can do it again.

Only this isn’t like creating or building you for the first time.  This is rebuilding you.  Renovating, remember?

He’s going to pull all those rusty nails, so He can design something new.  He’s going to scrub away the dirt from your past, scrape off the peeling paint of your failures that you keep focusing on, and rebuild your brokenness; He sees how others have hurt you and He’s going to permanently fix that crack in your heart that you keep trying to patch.  He’s going to wash away the black spots, the anger and bitterness, to stop them from spreading.

And when the demolition is complete and there’s nothing left but a mound of rubble, you can take a good look at your own hands and admit you can’t rebuild by yourself.  You need God.  You realize your sad attempts were like building a house out of wet cardboard and tape.

God has so much more for you than the soggy shoebox contraption you’ve been fixated on and tried to maintain.

As you trust Him to keep working, to gather the materials He’s going to use to rebuild, He will also dig up the painful things you have buried deep in the soil right outside your door; the place where the brown grass crunches underfoot.  That’s where you buried all the junk you didn’t want to bring into your house but couldn’t stand to look at anymore.  You know, the stuff you needed to deal with but didn’t.  God’s going to touch and heal that spot and plant a brand new seed.

And when He’s finished rebuilding and you stand from your place on the hillside to move in closer to see all His handiwork, you’ll realize all the brokenness and ugliness have been replaced with many wonderful changes and exciting, fresh starts.

And just wait until you see what He’s planted outside your door.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10 NIV.)