Edification

“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.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

This analogy speaks for itself.  There are a lot of great truths in this quote from CS Lewis that don’t require me to point them out or expand on them.  I want to highlight one truth, however, that may be a bit more implicit: the glory of the palace we are becoming is much greater than the pain of the rebuilding process.  This is the difference between suffering and Christian suffering.  General suffering must simply be endured like a stubbed toe or a headache.  Christian suffering is productive suffering, like giving birth or healing from a joint replacement.  I suppose there is nothing wrong with being a cottage unless you were meant to be a palace.  Becoming like Jesus means that God is rebuilding us.  The rebuilding process is not always comfortable.  But it is infinitely productive.