It was a nice little house - needed a lick of paint and new carpet, of course, it would have been fine. Someone could have lived in there - in fact, someone HAD been living in there - she died somewhere else. The reletives wanted to relase the capital (maybe they owed most of it to the UK govt, who knows?) so they sold it.
The new owners had BIG plans. It was going to become transformed into a BIG house. New walls to be built, here and here. Old walls to be knocked down, windows, doors bathroom, all to be replaced. You SHOULD have seen the mess. Skip-load after skip-load of old carpet, roofing felt, fitted cupboards, smashed up walls, broken tiles, doors, you name it. And the INSIDE - well, it just seemed to get worse and worse (well, the bathroom was completed and was a tremendous encouragement as a 'taste of things to come'). That encouraged 'the man'. Wires hanging everywhere, rotten floorboards uncovered. It was cold - damp too (you should have seen the rain dripping through when the roof had been taken off where the extension was to be built....). No one would EVER want to live in it now, no way. Not for ANY money. Even 'the man' was finding it challenging to get his dinner sorted out. Thing is, though, that it's not FINISHED yet. The man is still there. The tiles for the roof are next to the skip in the front garden - there's promise. All the windows are in now and there's one more room ALMOST finished (that's where 'the man' sleeps). He can now put a sheet of insulation against the doorway and, with the help of the small heater, keep from freezing overnight.
During the day he doens't have time to freeze, he's SO busy cutting, plastering, mixing, measuring - by the end of the day he's so tired that sometimes he falls asleep at his desk (that's where the only CHAIR in the house is). But 'the man' keeps on, he knows what he's got to do today, and next week and he keeps on beavering away at the job.
He has in mind what it's going to look like when it's finished. Pointing to the half-demolished wall he says "there'll be an arch just here......". He's got a light in his eyes, this gives me hope. He can actually SEE it. I can't. That's my problem. I don't. I never have been able to imagine what such a big project will look like when it is finished and envisage all the little steps on the way to it. It's a man thing.
Yesterday I realised (while I was praying) that it is a God thing..... My life is so far from what it ought to be - so much a 'work in progress'. I can't imagine (any more than that house could) what I might be like when I'm finished - oh yes, there are 'bathroom' bits - and new windows and doors - that helps. But really, I can't imagine what it'll all be like when it's finished. Or even how LONG it will take. I'm so thankful that God has a plan and that He has enabled me to trust Him to bring it all to pass.

I'm going to stop worrying about Philip and his 'magnum opus' from now on, reminding myself instead of the PROGRESS which is being made. It's wrong to evaluate a work part-way through, we should pray for vision - and if we can't have even a drop of that - just to TRUST God anyway.