Pure Enough?

When my wife (Denise) and I bought our house several years ago we knew that there were a few things we would have to fix along the way because that is one of the splendors of home ownership.  One thing that we knew would eventually need replaced was the gravity furnace.  Now, if you aren’t familiar with a gravity furnace, how it basically works is that the furnace superheats the air and then just releases it into the duct work and warms your house.  There is no forced air, merely a releasing of the super heated air to slowly rise through the ducts.  The only issue with this is that you get waves of very warm air followed with waves of the air getting cool between the waves of hot air.  It is very inefficient and, not to mention, the furnace was huge!

My parents were nice enough to replace that furnace and my dad even installed it for us.

We are still home owners (same house) and so we find ourselves in the midst of another project.  We decided to remodel our guest room and get it ready for our daughter (Arianna).  Mom and dad came back into town and so we put him to work.  He did the hard stuff and told me how to do the easy stuff.  We tore down the walls to find out there was no insulation (I love these old houses) and did the norm that goes along with gutting and rebuilding a room.  

Dad headed back home and I am left with the small task of painting.  As I began priming the walls, I made a checklist of the things I had to paint.  I knew I needed to paint the trim, of course, but I began talking myself out of having to paint the ceiling and doors.  I knew that it is the proper etiquette, when remodeling a room, to paint everything.  It freshens up the room and everything in the room when you paint, so, I caved, at least on the ceiling. 

I bought the paint, and began just cutting in the room (painting the edges).  The ceiling had seemed so white before, but now I saw how white it wasn’t.  Sure, if you had looked at the ceiling before you would have said that it was white, but it wasn’t white like this.  

I began painting the trim last night.  I opened the door to paint the trim around the door, and then I had to close it partially to paint the other side of the door frame.  You could see a drastic difference between the frame and the door.  What seemed white, no longer seemed white.  

That old gravity furnace had a lot of draw backs.  Without forcing the air through the vents it allowed for a lot of dust to setting in the vents, it didn’t burn very clean, and as I mentioned it was inefficient.  We had painted the room when we moved in, but in the few years that we had the gravity furnace after the original painting, the furnace had left its mark.  That isn’t to mention the impact of time that slowly dulls the brilliance of the white.

I stood there and marveled at the difference.  I was trying to be cheap, make less work, and make the process a little easier.  I tried to cut a corner and it was revealed to me that cutting corners (in this matter) is not an option if I want the room to look as good as it could.  It made me wonder what I have going on inside of me.  What is it that I think is good enough?  What am I trying to cut corners on?  What in my heart do I look at and say (figuratively), “That’s white enough.”  

“That’s pure enough.”

White often symbolizes purity.  So when I began to think that the door or ceiling was white enough, I just made a connection between how pure is my heart?  How often do I say, that is enough because I want to cut corners on working…or rather turning myself over to God’s desires?  I will give You this much God, but that is enough.  How often do I not realize losing brilliance, so to speak, in my heart because of the various matters in life that slowly begin to dim that pure closeness to God?  

It speaks to making sure that we consistently spend time with God, consistently evaluate ourselves by His standards and make time for His Spirit to evaluate us as we listen to that guidance as well.

There isn’t much to this entry, but it is just a simple thought that I had and I wanted to get it down.  Hope you are well.