Nobody tells you about the dust. You imagine the new kitchen, the extra bedroom, the bathroom that finally doesn’t leak. You don’t imagine weeks of fine grey powder on every surface, the fridge in the living room, washing dishes in a bucket on the verandah, the sound of a jackhammer at seven in the morning and a tarpaulin flapping where a wall used to be.
Renovation has a hard rule: it gets worse before it gets better. To add a room, you have to break through a wall. To fix the old plumbing, you have to dig up the floor. For a while, the house is less comfortable, less tidy and less like home than it was before you started. Many families, somewhere in the middle, wonder why they ever began.
Growing pains
Children with aches in their legs are often told, “It’s just growing pains.” Whether or not that is medically precise, it expresses something true about life with God. Growth often hurts.
It hurts because growing usually means letting something old be broken open. An old habit. An old way of handling money. An old pattern of speaking to a spouse or a child. An old fear that has kept us from doing what God asked. Like a wall that has stood for years, these things feel solid and familiar. Taking them down is noisy and uncomfortable, and for a while life can feel more disordered than it did before.
Jesus used a farming picture rather than a building one, but the point is similar: “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12:24, NKJV). New life comes through a kind of death. The old has to give way.
Who is doing the work?
Paul gives one of the most balanced descriptions of spiritual growth in Scripture: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13, NKJV).
Notice the two sides. We are to work it out, to cooperate, to take the steps, to put up with the dust. And yet it is God who is working in us, giving us both the desire and the ability. It is a little like a homeowner and a master builder. The owner has to agree to the work, make decisions, move the furniture, live with the mess and pay attention. But the owner is not the one who knows how to carry the load when the wall comes out. The builder is.
That is a relief. Growth is not something we must achieve by gritting our teeth. It is something God is doing in us, and we are invited to cooperate.
Stepping into the mess
Often the hardest part of growth is the first step: agreeing to start. The homeowner who needs a new roof may put it off for years, living with the buckets under the leaks, because the thought of the disruption is worse than the dripping. In the same way, we can live for years with a fear or weakness because facing it seems more painful than enduring it.
Picture a man who has always avoided dealing with the family finances, leaving it all to his wife and feeling vaguely ashamed. Growth for him might mean sitting at the table with the bank statements for the first time, admitting how little he understands, and asking to be shown. It is uncomfortable. It exposes a weakness. But it is also the beginning of a better partnership, and a house that is run by two people instead of one.
Whatever the step is for you, the promise of Philippians 2 is that God will meet you in it. He gives the will and the power. We rarely feel the power before we step. It tends to arrive on the way.
The day the dust settles
Eventually, in most renovations, there comes a day when the last tile is laid, the painter packs up, and the family stands in the new room. The dust is swept away. The fridge goes back where it belongs. And suddenly it is hard to remember what the house was like before, or why the mess seemed so unbearable.
Growth in God is rarely finished in this life, but there are seasons like that too. We look back and see that the painful breaking-through made room for something better: more patience, more honesty, more freedom, more love. Old ways die hard. But new life is worth the dust.
For reflection
- Is there an “old wall” in your life or household that God may be asking to break through? What makes you hesitate?
- Where have you seen, looking back, that a painful season led to growth?
A short prayer
Lord, You are working in me both to will and to do what pleases You. I confess that I prefer comfort to growth. Give me courage to take the next step, even into the mess, trusting that You will meet me with the strength I need. Break down what needs to go, build what needs to be built, and make this life, and this home, more fully Yours. Amen.
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