Inner Reconstruction

Often, God comes in, and without our realizing it, secretly does His work in us. Time and again, we pray and think that nothing is happening, that nothing is changing. Nevertheless, God is always faithful to His word and to His promises. His grace is at work, and one day we awaken to the realization that we have been changed, and we know that it was not of our doing.

We are totally unable to reconstruct ourselves, our attitudes, our desires, or even our thoughts, without God's Holy Spirit at work within. Remember, that as a Christian,

". . . it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).

In thinking of God’s reconstruction work in my life, I am reminded of an experience with my mother-in-law. Years ago, we moved “Granny” to Fort Worth from Cleburne, having determined that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s or a related illness. This move put her almost two hours away from her only daughter, and with James working, left me as her primary caregiver.

I will confess that I had never especially enjoyed her. It wasn’t that we didn’t get along; it was just that we never really connected. She tried and I tried. My prayer notebooks are full of prayers in which I asked God to love her through me.

It didn’t seem to me that those prayers had been answered. Now I was going to have to assume major responsibility for her. Oh, how I dreaded it!

However, the moment that I picked up the burden, in truth, it became a burden no longer, but one of God’s great blessings. For the prayers of years were answered and I loved her. It wasn’t that I came to love her. It wasn’t that I grew to love her. From the first day of working with her, I loved her. As the following three years passed, I had to do things in caring for her that I had never been called on to do before, yet I was able, without exception, to do them with a tenderness, a compassion, and a love that I know was not from me. I would leave her, thanking God for loving her, with His love, through me.

God longs to place His boundless agape love at the center of each of our lives. Who does God desire to love through YOU? Are you willing to be a vital part of one of God’s reconstruction projects, in which He removes the core of self-love and replaces it with the gentleness of His very own love?

Desire this gift. Open your life to it. Trust God for it. After all, only He can reconstruct something ugly within, into a life full of HIS LOVE for HIS GLORY.

In closing, consider Paul's prayer in Philippians 1:9-11:

"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."