This is my new life statement. Total restoration in progress. Think about this with me. As I walked down the old & classic looking streets of downtown St. Paul, there's a place called the Coney Island Cafe. It says it opened in 1923, and now there is plastic sheets over the windows & dirt in the doorway. But a tiny little sign tells you that there is a "total restoration in progress". When you peek into the windows, you can see the old bar stools, the juke box in the middle of the dining room, old booths made from dark wood...signs of a past that has been lived and worn down. Signs that at one time this little shop was something...it was made to be something, but has gotten dirty, old, been shut off from the outside & has lost life inside the walls.
As I walked away from the cloudy window, I pictured my own life like that little cafe. Parts of my life have been dusty, abandoned, been shut off from the outside & lost life. I thought about how many of us when going through difficult things will grow tired of visiting those places inside of us, and pretty soon they're closed for business, not something we easily remember, and not something any one would want to go back to.
But Christ, in his ever visioning perspective & will, sees that old place and sees the potential that is still held within. He comes inside of that place, and puts up a sign "total restoration in progress". Total....not one spot untouched, taking everything into the process. Restoration.....taking all those parts, every single spec & restoring it to the original design, the original intent & vibrant life. In Progress......an ongoing process, active & not sedentary, forward moving towards a goal, a developing of sorts.
Isn't our life in Christ a "total restoration in progress"? Will we ever reach a finished state until Christ says come home? And how would we be totally restored if we do not allow him into every little nook & cranny of our being?
When you see a place that has been totally restored to it's original state, is it not a beautiful sight? Something you want to behold, take in, soak up, relish, applaud, appreciate & marvel at? Are we not usually wanting to give recognition to the hard work that the restorer has accomplished? Do we not look at all the tiny details that the crafter took time to meticulously finish? Why then would we not recognize the work that Christ would like to do in us, a more than fully capable master who knows the ins & outs of us better than we know ourselves. Should we not then give him the keys to every part of us and especially the dark & dusty parts so that we can be fully restored to the life that Christ meant for us to live out?
That rocked.
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