My family is a mess! In fact, my house is a mess! There is no better word to describe the clutter around the parsonage than one big mess. New floors are going in this week at the house. All the furniture in 3 rooms are piled into one room. Tonight I saw my cat scaling a bed mattress as if she were King Kong! This was not nearly as impressive as her expression on her realization it was just as long a way down. Renovating or remodeling is a quest to discover how much pain and clutter one can live with until completion. If we just went as far as the piles were stacked then it could be most people would live with houses only halfway renovated. Every area of my body hurts tonight. My sinuses are totally messed up. I can only look forward to the next round of asprin before bedtime. This better be worth all the upheaval.

Churches like ours will usually say that we want revival. What we do not want is the divine upheaval it brings. The very nature of revival means that the old must be discarded so our Lord can renovate the clutter of life. This is why the oft quoted verse in 2 Chronicles states that God's people must turn from their wicked ways to seek God. Renewal like remodeling is never pain free. It is never without the uncovering of the clutter which clogs the flow of the Spirit. We must face our grudges with others. We deal with the failures in our personal walk with God. We go through our God confronting us about how we arranged our lives without His direction. When we say we want revival what we tend to mean is, "God, bless MY mess." If we want to pray for a true awakening of the Spirit then we must allow Him to do as He wishes with our lives for His good. This type remodeling is always worth the upheaval.

Bro. Trey