Building a Palace

Those times in your life where you're feeling...kinda hopeless. Slightly discouraged. Quite confused. Those times are difficult. They make it hard to grasp the "why" of life. Those times, I've realized, are about faith.

Because--even when I am struggling, feeling lost, and have no idea what's going on or why--there is someone who does.

"I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse." ~Philip Yancey

Faith is having hope that things will work out. Having hope that the Lord knows what's happening, even when I don't. 

Faith is trust in God and in His timing, even if it seems like all I do is wait.

Faith is not knowing and going forward anyway.

Faith is hard, but faith is so worth it.

This past weekend I, along with most of the world, got to listen to General Conference. This is an incredible, marvelous opportunity to listen to living prophets as they speak to us, with messages for us from the Lord.

How often do I take that special gift for granted? And how often am I powerfully reminded: the Lord is aware of me. He knows what I'm going through. He loves me.

This time something small, spoken by the Prophet from the Lord, made tears stream down my face as my heart overflowed. The waiting is hard, but the waiting is worth it. Something whispered: this is what faith is. Things that seemed like they were crashing apart in a sad array of hopelessly broken pieces were shown to me in a new light. Instead of seeing what I thought was a pile of rubble, I saw that the Lord had built a beautiful staircase with those pieces, a staircase that was leading me onward and upward. 

 C.S. Lewis must have felt this feeling, also, as he wrote: 

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

(This song above is one of my favorites. Perhaps give it a listen?)

"Oh, sweet the joy this sentence gives: I know that my Redeemer lives!"

 

Note: This post was originally published on my blog, https://lookingupinsong.blogspot.com, 8 Oct. 2012.