“Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” (Isa 64:8 NIV)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5:17-18 NIV)

One of the questions the continually haunts me as a growing Christian is why I still have this propensity to sin. I know God is working on me. He is continually revealing to me the places in my life that I have not yet yielded to Him. But sometimes, when I continually fall into the same temptations, I have to wonder: Is He getting anywhere? Am I just too stubborn to change? Am I the clay that can’t be molded? Will the “new creation” that is supposedly me EVER be evident amidst all the “flesh” that continues to hang on?

And isn’t it always easier to see the “lack of progress” in getting rid of the flesh in others than in ourselves? You know what I mean! You look at your born-again spouse, and all you see is the same faults you’ve seen ever since you said “I do”, and you ask yourself, “Is he/she even allowing God to work in his/her life? Because I sure don’t see any change!

There is an overpass under construction on the route I take to work every day, and as I passed under this new structure yesterday, I couldn’t help thinking about how the simple intersection with a stop light had now changed!

But the change didn’t happen all at once. There have been workmen on site, doing their various jobs, every day, but days and even weeks often pass without me noticing any change in the intersection. Then one day I passed the spot, and metal supports had suddenly appeared, as if overnight. More weeks then pass without any apparent progress, and suddenly, those metal supports become concrete supports, and there were ramps to the new overpass. Again, after weeks of seemingly no progress, an overpass suddenly appeared overhead!

After the structure appeared over the road however, the work again appeared to screech to a halt, and after several weeks of no apparent progress, I found myself wondering what those workmen could possibly be doing with their time all day …

The answer occurred to me this morning. There is much preparation that must take place before any major step can be completed on an overpass, and much of this preparation remains unseen to the general public. But as soon as the proper preparation is finished, visible change occurs. It is a slow process, but each step of the way, whether visible or not, is vitally important to the completion of the entire job.

This is how God molds and makes our lives. There are weeks and sometimes even months or years when it doesn’t seem like God is progressing at all in making our new creations apparent. But He is. Behind the scenes He is at work, shaping us, molding us, making the proper preparations, and just like the building of the overpass is done in small increments, God is also working on us at just the rate that is right for us.

Will the work ever be done? Unlike the overpass, the answer is no, for there is none without sin. But the important thing is that more and more of the new creation slowly begins to show. So don’t get discouraged when you or someone you know continually falls into the same sins. Instead rejoice, because behind the scenes God is busy at work reshaping you into that new creation!

P. S. That overpass is still unfinished, two years later. I hope God’s work in me is a bit faster!

Lyn Chaffart