Oh, the summer home project list! I can't help but chuckle whenever I see Nathan and his tools. He loves to pull out his tools when Charles gets his tool belt on. No matter the size or type of project, Nathan is there to "help" out too. It seems that the bigger home projects usually happen in the spring and summer at our home. Let's repaint this room, let's put in more storage here, let's think about landscaping over in that corner of the yard.... The home improvement list never seems to end. Remember the comedy sitcom Home Improvement? It was a show that ran in the 90s and the dad in that show was the character named "Tim". Tim had his own television show based on making home improvements. Tim would start a home improvement project and something hilarious would happen. He might take on some big electrical project and blow up the dishwasher or blow a hole in the wall. And instead of completed projects, he ended up with more work than he planned on. He had a gift for not taking himself too seriously and the ability to laugh about what happened to him.
Our home improvement projects reflect our "spiritual home improvement projects". The list never ends in our spiritual life either, and we have to have the right tools, the time, and often a sense of humor while we're working on them. What we think is a well-planned and well-thought out "spiritual endeavor" might have some twists and turns in store for us, and an outcome that we didn't necessarily foresee. Oftentimes our "spiritual improvement" list might look something similar to this: I want to: learn a new way to pray, read that book on forgiveness, go to church one more Sunday out of the month, volunteer for the VBS program, start going to therapy to work on an issue, begin to pray with my family or my spouse... try going on a day's spiritual retreat, or try my hand at journaling. Just like our home improvement lists, it is easy to get overwhelmed and never try to do anything. Or, we can start working on the project, and then completely lose interest in it, and we find the project at a complete halt until we do feel like tackling it. Sometimes we get into a home improvement project, and didn't realize just how much work it was going to involve, and then you find yourself re-evaluating what you want to do, and end up modifying the project to fit time and work environment constraints. The same is true of our "spiritual to-do" lists. After painting one room in a house it becomes very clear that the room next to it also needs a paint job,or that room looks really shabby, and the same holds true with our projects of the heart. After working on one area of your spiritual life, it becomes very apparent that you really need to work on the other underlying issue, or the spiritual improvement you are trying to achieve isn't an improvement at all, and all you've done is highlight the real dysfunction so that it now sticks out like a sore thumb begging for help. And now you have a decision to make. Are you going to stop there and call it good, and just gloss over that sore thumb and hope no one will notice, or are you going to develop an adjusted plan for improving that area of your life too?
Anyone who has tried to make home improvements knows that it doesn't always quite go as planned. There might be an unexpected cost that arises, materials that are hard to find, or a life event happens that puts the project on hold for awhile. Our spiritual improvements often go the same way. You've signed up for the retreat day, and then low and behold, your child gets sick and you can't attend. You've volunteered for the VBS program, and ended up spending more time than you thought you would. You went into therapy for help on communicating with your spouse in a more effective way, and you end up spending weeks in therapy on your childhood. You decide to develop a more disciplined prayer life in the morning and the first morning you go to do this, your alarm clock doesn't go off, and now you're off to a less than ideal start.
Just like the home improvements we work on to make our life more comfortable, livable, and happy, there are often surprises, false starts, and many re-dos before we finally see the finished product. Our soul improvements aren't any different. We have to have as much flexibility with our spiritual lives as we do with our home to do lists. The same sort of tools we need to improve our homes are the same sort of tools we need to improve our spiritual selves. Our tool bag for both should include: patience, a sense of humor, the ability to start over if necessary, softened expectations of ourselves, others, and God, sensible goals and a flexible plan to reach them, guidance and advice from someone who has "been there, done that', and the ability to celebrate the work in progress, not just the final product.
Just like our home improvement projects, it is progress that counts, not perfection, in the spiritual journey. Sometimes our perfectionistic tendencies block our view of an already perfectly beautiful physical and spiritual home. Whether you're working on your home projects or your spiritual projects, an attitude of gratitude will go a long way. If you can be thankful for the functionality of your home as it is, all the perfectly wonderful things you love about your home and why you chose to live there in the first place, the task of improving it and the ability to improve it, is all put into proper perspective. If we can be grateful for our spiritual selves just as we are now, and are able to see how wonderful and fearfully made we are today, then our spiritual future is put into its proper perspective. When we start to work on home improvements, we can't wait till its all done! We can't wait to start living in the freshly remodeled living room and just enjoy all the hard work we have put into it. But if we can't see the beauty that that room holds without all the improvements, the improvements we make won't mean anything either. Their beauty will fade in time as well. We can't wait till we really feel happy and peaceful. We can't wait to really know, feel, and see the action of God in our lives, but if we can't be happy and peaceful now, the beauty of "obtaining" those spiritual goals will fade with time too.
As our families needs grow and change, it is only right that our physical homes should be changed and improved as well. As we grow and change as a person, it is only right that our spiritual lives develop, change, grow, and fit the person we're becoming. We need to pull out our "tools", develop plans and goals,
and continue to make progress while remaining thankful for all that we are and have in this day and this moment. We need to dream about what our ideal home would look and feel like and we need to dream about what our ideal spiritual life would look and feel like. Giving those dreams to God, and surrendering them to the Great Creator of both our physical and spiritual homes, is one sure way to achieve our dream physical home and our dream spiritual home.
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