Thoughts On Sunday

I get a Lucado devotion everyday and they are always so good. They usually get me thinking...in a good way! Today's was called Decorating. Here is the devotion and some of the thoughts I had after reading it.

Decorating  (Max Lucado)

“Do good to me, your servant, so I can live, so I can obey your word.”  Psalm 119:17

God loves to decorate. God has to decorate. Let Him live long enough in a heart, and that heart will begin to change. Portraits of hurt will be replaced by landscapes of grace. Walls of anger will be demolished and shaky foundations restored. God can no more leave a life unchanged than a mother can leave her child’s tear untouched.

When I read this today I thought of so many things. Things that HE has changed for me just in the last year. I never thought of what GOD does as decorating but that is a great way to put it. It makes me think of what my heart must of looked like...or anyone's heart...before becoming a Christian.

I think of it as a dark and gloomy place. Cobwebs hanging all around it...a musty smell...no a death smell. There are all the little "rooms" you have in your heart. I remember way back in Sunday School and how the teacher related...somehow...about rooms in our hearts. I don't remember exactly but she said there were rooms. Anyway, there are rooms with hate in them...bitterness...unforgiveness...anger...deceit...lies...unhealed hurts...pain caused from things done to you...pain from the things you do to yourself...all of these in little rooms. Some rooms have no light on in them at all anymore...some just a flicker of light, like a candle. Then one day, when you ask JESUS to come into your heart, it all starts to change. Little by little HE starts sweeping out. First HE gets the small stuff...cobwebs. Then HE goes after all the muck and grime that's stuck to the walls and floors. As HE works the death smell starts leaving. But, HE doesn't work to quickly because HE knows it's a process. HE takes HIS time so we can adjust to the newness of HIS life in us. GOD knows if HE brought all of our pain and hurt out into the light at one time it would be too much for us. Besides, some of the stuff you just need to work through before you can get over it. As HE goes through each room the light starts coming back on. Lights that may have been off for your entire life. Then you really start living in the light! After that, the decorating stage...and I think GOD decorates for each of us differently according to what we need. Isn't that cool. Since we're all different HE does different things for each of us. I'm not sure what the decorations might look like. Maybe besides landscapes of grace some of them are things like barrels of happiness and jars of joy. The point is, HE changes you...little by little...until you don't hurt so much anymore. You have more good things in your heart...light things instead of dark things.  If you work with HIM, and let it all go, you will be a new person. Changed from the inside out!

For me it seems that I must have as many rooms as the Holiday Inn because there is always a new one HE is cleaning out and changing. The good part is...when the light comes on again! I never know how HE will decorate it... but it is always with something good!