Fresh Coat.

“Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us." Hosea 6:1

When I finally rolled out of bed on Saturday morning, my original plan was to just jump back in and go back to sleep. According to my calendar, I had no plans for the day. However, something about a free Saturday put me in "nesting" mode. 

I quickly decided that I would spend my morning de-cluttering my bedroom. The frames that made a collage over my bed frame looked a little tired to me as I made my bed and the pile of things I had waiting for frames suddenly came to mind. Quickly, I started piling all the pictures as I took them off my wall. There were holes in the walls where the nails used to stand. Not a problem, I thought to myself. I quickly covered the holes with putty and continued to organize and clean. A quick touch up with paint and it will be good as new. 

When I first dabbed the paint on the wall I was a little concerned, it did not look like it was an exact match. But eager to get the job done I slapped it on a spot and waited to see if it was going to dry the same. By the time it was almost dry it looked like it was going to be the same color. I continued to cover the putty spots on the wall and other little scratches. Then I finished my cleaning for the day. As it started to dry, I got a little worried. I jumped in the shower and prayed with more time to dry it would look good. But a half an hour later I realized this was not the case. 

Well, there went my free Saturday. Across all the walls in my room were splotches of paint that did not match the rest of the wall. Not exactly thrilled about this outcome, I informed my dad that we would have to apply a fresh coat of paint to the entire wall. 

With painter's tape covering the walls and plastic draped on the furniture we set out with rollers to paint the walls with a color only slightly lighter than the color already on the walls. An afternoon later, my walls looked completely fresh. No more holes, no more scratches, and no more spots where furniture or frames had rubbed against the wall leaving their paint. Things that had just hours earlier looked old and rundown, now looked refreshed and new.  

As I rolled the paint up and down, I discovered that we too can be kind of like those walls. God is our painter. Dents stand where people let us down. Scratches where addiction, lust, and jealousy control us. Holes are carved by fears, feelings of inadequacy, and abuse. We are in need of more than just a touch up. We are in need of a Savior. Someone who will see our tiredness. Someone who will notice our damage and seek to restore us. Someone who take a day or a lifetime to do some "nesting" in our hearts and create in us a home. We need a Savior to apply the FRESH COAT. 

Lucky for us, we have the handiest healer. God, in His infinite love and mercy, chooses to spend His "free Saturday" fixing us. Restoring life and refreshing our hearts. He does not just want to patch up the holes in you, He wants to completely restore you back to beauty. Through His love, through the hope He gives us, through forgiveness, and the promise of SALVATION, He restores in our hearts a new truth and a new purpose. And because of that we are made new in His unfailing love. 

As the paint dried on my walls and I removed the tape, I began to decide which things I would be hanging back up on my walls. The decision seemed to matter more now than it did before. With each placing of nails I held my breath wanting to make sure I was placing the hole exactly where I wanted it. I had just spent hours working to make these walls look good, one wrong hole and the perfection would be destroyed. I found myself to be more picky too, choosing not to hang some things back up, they just did not belong on those walls anymore. 

It made a difference having fresh walls. The work I had put in made me cherish them. And I was anxious not to ruin how nice they looked. 

It is just the same when we become a new creation of Christ. We have to reevaluate who we are and who we want to be. Sometimes that means leaving relationships or sins behind. Sometimes that means being more cautious about what we hang on our walls. But ultimately, I think that once we let God create in us something new, we are called to fight everyday to cherish who we are and challenged to continue to let God reshape, renew, and redefine our faith through fresh coats of paint. 

God wants to come into your heart. He seeks to paint your walls with His love. Will you let Him? Being a new creation, will you fight to keep the masterpiece as beautiful as He designed it?