Restoration project
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. –Hebrews 13:8 (NIV)
You’ve inherited a vintage vehicle. (That means it’s old!) To many, it’s a bit of an eyesore and an albatross. For some reason you can’t even explain, you get a wild hair and decide to try and restore it. You watch some videos on the internet, borrow some tools, and start taking the thing apart. After a couple months of evenings and weekends devoted to the project, you have car parts strewn about the garage floor. You were cleaning and tagging as you went, but now you look around and realize– you aren’t even to the hard part yet!
At this point, you have three choices:
Load the parts up in a dumpster and sell them for scrap,
Cobble together the parts you've salvaged and see if there's enough there to get the old jalopy running again, or
Strip it down to the original essentials, repair/replace the parts that are worn out, broken, and obsolete, and commit to the task of turning this ride back into what it was meant to be.
Many people, and especially those of the younger generation, are living out this scenario when it comes to their faith. The religious traditions they grew up with feel mostly inherited. They have dis-assembled the components of their spiritual upbringing and found a fair number of broken pieces. Some parts are confusing and don’t seem to fit – they look like they might be aftermarket add-ons that were bolted or clumsily welded onto the frame long after the original product left the showroom. They are looking at the owner’s manual and scratching their heads over some of what they see covering the floor of the garage.
“You will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord…. –Jeremiah 29:12-14a (NIV)
At that point, the choices regarding faith are not that different from the choices regarding the car. The fact that someone is going through the dis-assembly process is not a bad thing. What’s important is what we choose to do next. God is big enough to handle our questions but we must be diligent enough to pursue His answers and brave enough to accept them. Though the exercise is more prevalent among the younger set, the need to continue our growth process crosses demographic lines.
All of us should have a regular practice of re-visiting the owner’s manual with fresh eyes and prayerfully assessing whether re-alignment is in order. The truth has not changed. I'll repeat: THE TRUTH HAS NOT CHANGED. But for the wise student, understanding and application is ever-growing, as the Spirit leads. Moreover, an adjustment in our emphasis or our presentation is sometimes needed in a culture far different from the one we grew up in. If my goal is to point people toward Jesus, I want to avoid things that interfere with my ability to do that.
I came across this short article that made me think. I don’t necessarily agree with everything the writer had to say, and he doesn’t try put the car back together in this piece. But perhaps it starts to frame the conversation. We’ll start working on re-assembly next week. For now, let’s think and pray. Unity in Christ is what we’re after. “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
...until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. –Ephesians 4:13 (NIV)