Some of you will know that we are having an extension, an extra room, built on to the back of our house. Things are progressing nicely and the builders are ahead of schedule. The area is now even starting to look like a room as slowly things are being added. Last week the plumber laid pipes and the electrician dug channels and fed leads along beams and along walls. This week the roof felter did his stuff and things are starting to take shape.

The garden, and the area itself, although we can see what they will look like in part in a few weeks with not too much imagination, is a total mess. It’s fairly depressing to look at. There is rubble, old bits of guttering and piping, discarded bricks, splashes of concrete … the list could lengthen. On occasions we can even look at the mess and wish we had never started.

On Friday a new window was delivered. It was the correct size but when trying to fit it the builder found that the wall was not straight and so the fit snugly some adjustments and extra brick work and plastering needs to be done. Nothing major, and apparently quite a normal state of affairs.

Sometimes this can be a little stressful; I do know, however, that in a few weeks we will have a nice functional room, and in a little while after that a garden to relax in again.

My point? While looking at the mess today I thought this is not too different from my Christian life, my journey with God. In fact, to describe my Christian journey location as a building site is a fairly accurate description at any point in my life. A building site is a ‘work in progress’, and that is what my life is with God.

I look at my life, and I wish some things had not been undertaken. I look around at discarded things which I know I need to allow God to put away at some time and stick in the skip. Some bits I can look at and see the potential, other bits I need a bit more faith and imagination! Still other bits I look at and I can genuinely say I like that as it is and do not think it needs changing.

I think that is a healthy position to be in. My life as a work in progress, as a building site, where some bits are complete for the moment, but where other bits are still being built. Some parts are also being re-adjusted, as with the window, when I discover that views I once held rigidly no longer fit with my developing relationship with God. Essentially though, the foundations are the same, as all the building moves out from the strong foundations that have been built and added to over the years.

Amazing – I tried to ‘force’ a bible study this morning but I just could not get ‘into it’. 15 minutes looking out the dining room window at a building site and I can hear God clearly speak! A case of the right place at the right time.