New Construction Doesn’t Mean Perfect Construction

We live in a beautiful, new house. Our house sits on a treeless lot, previously used as horse pasture, and overlooks the rolling hills and corn fields of the Midwest countryside. We live on the top of one of the hills. We can see across to the tops of the other hills around us, like standing on the edge of a bowl and looking to the other side. The country on the inside of the bowl stretches out before us like canvas. I can see cars traveling down the roads that criss-cross the bowl. Their small shapes stream along black lines of ribbon. At night, the lights from the other houses dot the landscape like land-locked stars.

Our beautiful, new house is also lovely inside. We laid down giant scraps of carpet in our unfinished basement on which the kids can play with their staggering amount of Legos. Our basement also contains the laundry room and music area (my piano, music stands, binders, hymnals, and recording equipment). The kids’ bedroom, homeschool room, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, and living room are all on the main level. We decorated the main level with greens and reds in the living room, and grays and yellows in the kitchen. The walls are a calm, warm brown-gray color. They match well with everything. Upstairs from the main level and over the garage is my and Brian’s master bedroom, complete with a walk-in closet and our own bathroom.

I do notice some things that surprise me about our new house. The paint around the windows looks streaky in some spots, like the painters didn’t quite trim thick enough or carefully enough. The dark stain from the trim somehow found its way onto the corner of the window in our master bedroom. A jagged, inch-long scratch runs from one cabinet door to the corner of another cabinet. And of course, we made some black streaks and small dents in the wall as we moved into the house. None of these things makes our new, beautiful house any less beautiful, but they do make me realize something: new construction doesn’t mean perfect construction.

In many ways our house reminds me of what it means to be a Christian on this earth–already made new in Christ, but certainly not perfect. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” When we begin to trust in Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, God replaces our hearts of cold, hard stone with hearts of living, breathing, and rejoicing flesh. [1] God no longer sees us as wayward children; instead, he sees us as adopted sons and daughters, precious and beloved. Where once an empty lot stood, now a dwelling sits stately and fair. Those who pass by this once-empty lot can see that God is building up something new and beautiful.

This doesn’t mean that we are perfect, even though we are new creations that bring glory and joy to God through Christ. Paul explains in Romans 7:19, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” Here’s what we do: we scuff up the walls of our new dwellings when we snap at our children; we keep Jesus at arm’s length and hastily paint on our own holiness with the hope that we can cover up the bad spots–in other words, we hope no one will notice our inward stains if our outside looks somewhat neat and tidy; we scratch our cabinets when we live destructively and forget that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. [2] God sees us as holy dwellings, set apart for His good work and righteous in Christ, but we must still continue to fight against the sin that so easily lurks around the cabinets, walls, and windows of our hearts. God justifies us in Christ the moment we trust in Him for salvation. The process of sanctification, however, takes days, months, and years–until we leave this earth for heaven, or until Jesus returns.

Our beautiful, new house is certainly new, lovely, and surrounded by miles of corn, livestock, and families we hope to meet soon. Likewise, God sees us as beautiful, new creations, certainly guaranteed by the Holy Spirit and made righteous in Christ. We strive to grow in Christ’s likeness. Perfection will evade us on this earth, just like perfect paint jobs and stain that stays in place, but we have a future hope. Someday God will make our new, holy, and humble dwellings into new, holy, and glorified dwellings–perfect both inside and out!

[1] Ezekiel 36:26
[2] 1 Corinthians 6:19-20