January 21, 2020 – Click here to listen
Well supposedly we will finally receive our Certificate of Occupancy which will clear the way to move into our new house today. In the Florida Keys getting a home built with a practically non-existent mostly inept workforce and through all of the permits and regulations ever devised is nothing short of a miracle akin to parting the Red Sea. Well maybe not that difficult, but nonetheless a formidable task.
This process has tested my patience like it has not been tested in some years. I have angrily ranted and poured out my frustration on our builder and tightwad owner who have both lied consistently about when the home would be finished and ready to move in. We were told it would be completed at the very latest by the first of November and here we are almost in February.
I don’t think my venting shortened the completion date at all. It ran off their backs like rain on a duck. I have built several homes and buildings and it is always the same. Contractors are used to lying with impunity and aside from the media, politicians, and attorneys, I have found no one who lies more consistently than builders. It is a way of life for them. Promises are made to be broken should be their primary advertising byline.
I will be going over to the job site this morning to watch the inspector sign off on it and then begin the negotiations on the final closing. After closing the nightmare of moving in will transpire. Once settled it will likely take a stick of dynamite to make me ever move again and go through this process.
So I was mulling all of this over and I thought about being homeless on the street when I was a youngster. Sometimes I would sleep up under bridges or at the Salvation Army mission and sometimes I managed a seedy room in the most dangerous sections of town. If I got lucky someone would allow me to crash at their place and I could take a hot shower. Each day was a challenge to find enough money to support my addictions and what little food I could manage to choke down. My few shabby clothes primarily came from the Salvation Army.
I suppose I wasn’t as philosophical back then as I am now because I just accepted my plight without complaining. I was far from the Lord and didn’t have any hope of changing and I assumed I would die young and violently on the street or perhaps in prison.
God changed all of that for me and I was able to work hard and smart and forge out a new and good life for my family and me. I have been incredibly grateful and in awe of God for loving me and lifting me out of that existence and have often wondered why He did it. I saw where C.S. Lewis wrote, “The world exists not chiefly that we may love God but that God may love us.”
Isn’t that an incredible statement? How can we ever comprehend such a thing? It blows my mind.
Lewis added: If He who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed.” Hmmm . . . We definitely need our Christ. Not just for salvation but to guide our daily lives. For example becoming frustrated over stupid delays in completing my new home is understandable from a human perspective, but God reminds me that I am incredibly blessed. Remember those who don’t have a home at all and are wandering the streets hoping to find a meal? He brings up my early life as a reminder of His grace and goodness because He loves me, not to punish me.
So this morning I am perplexed that I am not where I need to be even after fifty years of being a Christian. I try so hard but just cannot seem to achieve that point of complete obedience, patience, humility, and righteousness that I desire with all my heart. I’m bummed out about it, but I realize that one fine day God will perfect me and I will throw no more temper tantrums and fuss and fret about mundane things that really don’t amount to much of anything and I will sin no more.
Thank you – Thank You – Thank You Lord for all that You do and for pouring out Your love on me a sinner!
1 Peter 2:1
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ . . .