Reconstruction

When I walk out the door of my office, I can see at least 4 construction cranes. It's pretty amazing when they are lifting heavy containers of concrete. There are times when the container is above the street as cars and people walk by. Yesterday, the crane directly behind the office was being dismantled as it was no longer needed at that site. In order to bring it down a larger mobile crane was brought in. The boom was so big that it was brought in on two separate flatbed trailers. The street was blocked off and because of the associated danger involved with moving the equipment, access was limited to those who lived or worked in the area. As the pieces came down, they were placed on the street and I expected that they would be gone in the morning.

I arrived at the office early this morning and to my surprise, the crane pieces were still on the street only about 100 yds from where they were yesterday. The large crane that took everything down yesterday was busy hoisting the old crane into place on the building directly behind the one it had worked at the day before.

As I walked to the car God spoke to me about the crane. He pointed out that at the end of the day yesterday, I had assumed the crane was done and gone, but in reality it had just been moved to a new location, perhaps to build an even bigger building. It's purpose was still valid and there was still work for it to do. He also pointed out that before you can go higher, there are times that you have to be taken down so that you can be moved into a new place, to fulfill a new purpose and continue to be a part of what He is doing.

This week marks 2 years since I resigned at Gateway City Church in Kamloops. It was the right thing to do and it was the right time to move towards what we are doing today. The last two years have been full of great lessons, recovery, healing and reconstruction. In just over 10 days, I will fully step into the new role and ministry that God has prepared for me to do in advance. These past two years have been precious as the Lord has reconstructed so many things in our lives to prepare us for this step.

We have learned about His faithfulness to us and how He always makes a way. We've learned that God is not cheap and nor should we be. He blesses open hands as much as he blesses open hearts. We've learned that little is much when God is in it and not to despise the day of small beginnings. We've learned about friendship, love and great neighbours that we've had to leave behind. We've also learned that there are new friendships that quickly become as precious as those we've known in the past and that in the end we have not lost friends so much as we are adding new ones.

Finally, we've learned that deconstructing is a part of constructing is into something new and wonderful. Deconstruction ensures that while we might have become set in our ways, thinking and practices, we are not abandoned to our 'rut'. God cares about us too much to place us on a shelf and leave us there until Jesus comes. He'd rather have us 'in the game' because it's better for us and because He's got a job for us that needs to be done.