Bible Text: Philippians 1:6 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. Philippians 1:6, The Message

Theologians call it sanctification. George MacDonald, the man who greatly influenced C. S. Lewis, would have called it remodeling. It’s what happens when you have made your plans and have the working drawings of your future all laid out in vivid detail. Then God pushes them aside and surprises you with something different.

In Mere Christianity, Lewis quotes MacDonald, who wrote, “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself” (Mere Christianity, p. 174).

Frankly, I haven’t faced the traumatic experiences that some have gone through. I’ve never been held captive by guerrillas, wondering if I would ever see my wife and children again. I’ve never been taken to the hospital, more dead than alive, or been beaten by hostile crowds who didn’t like the calling to which I have dedicated my life. My babies grew into adulthood and now have children themselves. But (and this is a turning point) I’ve walked through the valleys with more people than I can remember, and I’ve wept with them and prayed for God’s strength to help pick up the pieces and go on. I’ve also noticed the very thing MacDonald was writing about. When God remodels a life—no matter how painful the interruptions are in the process—the end result is better than it was beforehand.

A person is more sensitive, more Christ-like, more understanding. There is less arrogance, more compassion. Less glamour, more gold. The Psalmist wrote that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and so are his stops, contended George Mueller. It’s the stops which take place during God’s remodeling that we don’t like.

I have had some experience with remodeling, and about the best thing that I can say about it is that I like it best when it is finished. Who likes the sawdust on the floor, or the chalk from the wall board particles, the smell of paint or the noise of hammers and saws. But when the task is finished, we say, “Ah! It was worth it.”

The writer of Hebrews described life’s remodeling as a kind of spiritual discipline. He wrote, “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?” (Hebrews 12:7). Notice that he says it is hardship or difficulty which we are to consider as discipline—not punishment. Punishment is for wrongdoing, and the focus is on the past. But discipline focuses on the future in producing something different, something better, something of quality.

A closing thought: The Greek word which we translated “sanctify,” which really is the working of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives, comes from a word whose root means “to be holy.” Interesting. Do you see the connection between difficulty—God’s remodeling project in our lives—and the end result? No wonder Scripture says that “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11). Be patient, friend, when God starts a remodeling project. He always finishes the task.

Resource reading: Philippians 1