We are in the midst of serious DIY at home, something (in my opinion) to be avoided at all costs! Some of this chaos was planned (to cut a long story short, the gas people are doing things with pipes and moving our meter as part of this work, which involves upheaval in our lounge, so we have decided to have that room re-plastered and do things with shelving etc. to create more space); some of it was decidedly unplanned (new kitchen cupboards because our main wall cupboard decided to ‘come away’ from the wall and after twenty-plus years was decidedly in need of replacement!)
I have to confess that DIY and decorating are up there on my ‘hated’ list. This is just not ‘me’! For someone who can work through text with a fine toothcomb, noticing every misplaced comma, wrong spelling or faulty punctuation, I have a decided antipathy to the precision needed for successful DIY. I have watched Garry labour over making kitchen cupboards fit into a space that is not the beautifully flat, square space they were designed for (apparently no wall in our house is straight and no angle at corners that you would expect!) with a doggedness and determination that I simply do not possess. I watched a friend sand doors in the kitchen with bewilderment: is all that effort really needed before you even start painting? It all seems too much like work to me!
The other thing I dislike so vehemently about DIY is the chaos it brings, as you can see from the pictures above. Things have to get bad before they get better. You can’t re-plaster a wall over existing fittings and furnishings, so everything has to be removed. I dislike the upheaval needed before progress can be seen. I know that the finished product will be better than the original (I now have 4 kitchen cupboards instead of 2, for example), but in the meantime, the disorder, untidiness, dust and general ‘where did I put…?’ of it all grinds me down.
Imagine my relief this morning then, when, having relocated my Bible and books, I read the following in Eugene Peterson’s commentary on Ephesians, ‘Practise Resurrection’:
“The practice of resurrection is not a do-it-yourself self-help project. It is God’s project and He is engaged full-time in carrying it out.”
Hurray! This resurrection life I live isn’t a DIY project! I don’t have to spend hours stripping sin from my life like the wallpaper off the wall: God has dealt with it in Christ at the cross and now He has removed my sin as far as the east is from the west! (Ps 103:12). I don’t have to work out how to please God: He looks at me and sees Christ’s righteousness! The verbs in Ephesians 1 are all verbs where God is doing the action. We are in on the action, to be sure, but we are no longer in the driver’s seat. This project, our great salvation and redemption, is God’s project. And He is more than capable of finishing what He has started! (Phil 1:6)