Guard rails

It turns out that building a custom house does, in fact, take time.  

As in, not only months from start to completion, but time to comparison shop tile stores with huge selections; time to mull over paint colors in every kind of light imaginable; time to research the newest appliances.

Who knew these things wouldn't just happen on their own?

Thus, I'm feeling a distinct squeeze between finishing the house...and finishing the school year.


The kids love it when Grandpa shows up, or even calls, because they know I'll stop teaching and consult with him for at least 20 minutes.


Whole school days have been missed in favor of a shopping trip to the home improvement store.


Many days are cut short, or start late, so I can do some new-house-related task.

Combine pressure with my naturally serene personality, and you get a certain level of stress.

Like driving on an icy road, I have tendencies to veer off into error on either side of the situation.


On the one side, I can become obsessive about every detail and pin so much hope on bigger-better-more-organized-and-finally-beautiful until I'm bowing down in worship of the almighty house.  Nothing else is important except getting it all just right.

On the other side of the road, I consider that since there are starving children in Africa, I have no right to have any concerns; that small house details are not worthy of being lifted up in prayer; and that I should be a little ashamed of expending any thought on such extravagance.


By God's grace, I reject both errors.


Error #1 is obvious:  my incorruptible treasure is in heaven, not here, and no amount of earthly beauty and convenience will ever satisfy my soul.  I will thirst for Jesus in 300 or 3,000 square feet.


Error #2 has had me stumbling a lot.  It has such an alluring sense of righteousness.  It's the overcorrection when you feel the car slipping into one ditch and you spin right around to end up in the other ditch.


Of course the new house is not the most important thing.  But can I deny that this is the task God is calling me to do right now?  To complete this house with excellence and beauty, as His image-bearer is rightly inclined to do?  To rejoice in His all-satisfying glory from within the squeeze of home and school?


Indeed there are starving children in Africa, and persecuted Christians around the world--and as I pray for them, that they would exalt God's supremacy in their suffering, ought I not also to seek to exalt God's supremacy in my tile and paint selection?


If I am ashamed from my smitten conscience warning me I'm lifting the house up too high, shall I respond by avoiding the topic with my Father?  Or shall I respond with trust to the one who tells sinners, "Come"?


May I hold no corner of my universe back from God's ever-present help and desperately-needed blessing.


May I not forsake God when I enter Home Depot.


May He use every squeeze, every tile, every doorknob, every decision, to glorify His resplendent, all-satisfying grace.