While I in bed sick a few weeks ago, I watched a lot of YouTube videos. The algorithm that knows I like thrifting and vintage reseller videos, (this channel and this channel are my favorites) so it started feeding me furniture flipper videos.

I watched a skilled furniture flipper who sands and then repaints old furniture. Then I moved on to videos of a more skilled hobbyist woodworker who does repair and refinishing.

Finally, I came to videos of a master woodworker who understands how a piece was originally made and how to restore it to its original state. This involved complicated upholstery and woodworking with specialized tools and skills you can only learn from other masters.

Watching the care the master woodworker took with each project made me think about how impatient I am in many areas of my life. I’m uncomfortable with how long it takes me to complete my goals, to make spiritual progress, and to unlearn bad habits. 

In one video, the master woodworker restored an old chair by almost completely rebuilding it. It had to be taken apart, the springs replaced, the padding redone, and the upholstery stripped and replaced. What a mess had to be made to restore it! 

Sometimes I feel like that chair in the middle of the restoration. I’m not presentable or put together, but I am in the hands of, not a quick flipper or an amateur hobbyist, but a master craftsmen who knows what he’s doing. 

He can take us apart because he has the skill to put us back together. 

If it was up to me, I’d go for the quick flip! I love this quote by C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity:

“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.”

And this verse as well:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4 NIV)

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