Missed Opportunities

Isaiah 25:1
O LORD, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name; For You have worked wonders. Plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.

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As I sat listening to a friend share her experiences with dating two very different men, a thought came to me that should she engage in a serious relationship with either of them....well one of them appeared to be "turn key" and the other needed work.

I grabbed that term from a host of home improvement shows I had drowned myself in over the previous weekend.  Our conversation reminded me of when my husband and I first stepped into our new "turn key" home.  It was a new construction.  It was beautiful! It was clean! No one had lived there before, as we settled our belongings into this new space.  It was perfect! Screech..........ummm, or was it? 

The very first night, my daughter was cleaning her bathroom and used the cleaning wipes to scrub everything down and then promptly flushed it down the toilet...well almost.  A horrible smell developed that filtered all the way upstairs to our Master bedroom.  A plumber was called in on emergency, and he was able to extricate the offensive paper that had clogged the system.  We all learned what not to do when dealing with a septic pump system.  

The next event was on a much smaller scale, but nonetheless, terrified me.  We had just fallen asleep for the night, when I hear this crackling sound.  After a couple of "did you hear that" whispers to the husband, and him responding that he heard nothing...I hear it again.  This time, I sat straight up in bed, turned on the light and subsequently let out an ear peeling scream that jarred the husband out of his sleep and into battle mode.  I demanded he chase this little rodent beast and watched in horror as the little offender made haste to scurry out of our bedroom and into the main living space.  The husband attempted to chase it down, but lost it somewhere else in the house.  I would not rest that night until he had barricaded us in safely with towels at each doorway.  I made a frantic call to our builder, and he reminded me that we lived in the country.  He also reminded me that when they were constructing the home, it meant doors were pretty much open at some point and that it is typical for country mice to move in before the new owners.  Ugh.  The nerve!

Actually, both situations are something I can laugh about now, but at the time I was shaken out of my dream world that this new home was a perfect place....turn key, and yet after we moved in we found out it was not quite perfect.  There were flaws.  There were issues, and it would require work.  

It is the same with relationships.  When we meet someone, the work may not seem so obvious starting out.  The individual may appear to be "turn key" in every respect, but as we enter into a relationship and start to know one another...well those little issues will start to pop up and require work on both parts.  

How wonderful it is though with our relationship with God.  He already knows us.  He knows our before, our now and our later.  Unlike the things of this world we try to label as "perfect" or "turn key." Later we are disappointed because we find they are anything but "perfect" or "turn key."  His plan for us is perfect created in His faithfulness!  We will have choices to make, and they can either include God or not.  He doesn't force his perfect plan onto us, because He is a gentleman.  If only we would make decisions with 'big picture' in our hearts and an understanding that God's love for us is perfect and He wants what is best for us. We sometimes limit our view by what is in front of us....our now moment...instead of realizing that if we would follow God and seek His will in all things...and even though it may feel like the harder road when that over there appears to be turn key...God has our best interests at heart.  It was created in His faithfulness to us.  We always should be striving for perfection.  To do better.  To get it right.  To work towards being "turn key."  We may never fully understand the path God leads us on, but one day all will become clear to us and I know...yes I know, in my heart that we will rejoice with Him and all His angels because of what He has done for us.