A letter showed up in my mailbox a couple weeks ago. The road outside our neighborhood is going under construction, and the completion date is more than a year away. A full year. That was the first thing I noticed.
My first reaction was honest annoyance. I started writing the complaint in my head before I'd even finished reading. The detours. The dust. The extra ten minutes every time we leave the house. I had a whole year of grumbling already lined up and ready to go.
But then I kept reading.
The plan is actually pretty incredible. Wider lanes. New sidewalks where there aren't any now. Landscaping. Real improvements that will make this corner of Wichita better for everyone who lives here and drives through. When it's finished, it will genuinely be a better road.
So I have a choice in front of me. I can complain for twelve months about what's torn up, or I can be expectant about what's being built. Same construction. Same inconvenience. Two very different ways to live through it.
Sitting with that letter, I started thinking about the seasons in our own lives that look a lot like this. Sometimes we get a notice we didn't ask for. Things we thought were settled get torn up. Routines we counted on stop working. Relationships we assumed would always feel a certain way are suddenly under repair. It's disorienting. It's inconvenient. We're tempted to spend the whole season complaining about the mess.
But what if the mess is evidence that something is being built?
Paul writes, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6). That's a construction verse. God is not finished with us. The work He started He intends to complete, and the in-between is rarely tidy.
We don't get to grow without seasons that feel torn up. Growing pains are real, and so is the growth. The dust and the detours don't mean something has gone wrong. They might mean something is finally moving.
I don't want to stay stagnant. I'd rather be inconvenienced and growing than comfortable and stuck. So when the cones go up next week, and when whatever season we're in gets messy, may we have eyes to see what's being built and patience to live in the meantime.
peace,
Nick
My first reaction was honest annoyance. I started writing the complaint in my head before I'd even finished reading. The detours. The dust. The extra ten minutes every time we leave the house. I had a whole year of grumbling already lined up and ready to go.
But then I kept reading.
The plan is actually pretty incredible. Wider lanes. New sidewalks where there aren't any now. Landscaping. Real improvements that will make this corner of Wichita better for everyone who lives here and drives through. When it's finished, it will genuinely be a better road.
So I have a choice in front of me. I can complain for twelve months about what's torn up, or I can be expectant about what's being built. Same construction. Same inconvenience. Two very different ways to live through it.
Sitting with that letter, I started thinking about the seasons in our own lives that look a lot like this. Sometimes we get a notice we didn't ask for. Things we thought were settled get torn up. Routines we counted on stop working. Relationships we assumed would always feel a certain way are suddenly under repair. It's disorienting. It's inconvenient. We're tempted to spend the whole season complaining about the mess.
But what if the mess is evidence that something is being built?
Paul writes, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6). That's a construction verse. God is not finished with us. The work He started He intends to complete, and the in-between is rarely tidy.
We don't get to grow without seasons that feel torn up. Growing pains are real, and so is the growth. The dust and the detours don't mean something has gone wrong. They might mean something is finally moving.
I don't want to stay stagnant. I'd rather be inconvenienced and growing than comfortable and stuck. So when the cones go up next week, and when whatever season we're in gets messy, may we have eyes to see what's being built and patience to live in the meantime.
peace,
Nick