I found it in the basement, under the stairs. It looked like it was forgotten. It was old, wooden, with parts that had begun to rot and was covered in old paint. The chipping paint scattered everywhere. It was scratched and dented. This forty-year-old high chair would be no easy task but I had a plan and that plan was to restore it. I had no idea what I had taken on. I gathered the necessary tools and supplies and went to work. Little did I know all that I would learn on this project. 

One of the biggest lessons I learned was the importance of waiting. Waiting for the paint stripper to do its work made me keenly aware of the significance of doing “nothing”, or better stated, abiding. Just like a furniture restorer has to wait for the chemicals to strip the paint from the wood, I learned the importance of waiting for the Lord to separate the negative from me and how abiding can restore me. So much of this is done in the moments of being still, those times when I simply sit still and listen. Abiding is an active waiting. This is difficult to do more times than not, because life is so full of all the things I have to do. I don’t have time to wait! Who has time to just sit and “do nothing”? But like the paint stripper, abiding in Him is not doing “nothing”. It is actually doing more than the eye can see. It is a slow process, but the longer one waits, the easier brushing and wiping old paint off that beat up furniture will be. The same can be said when we sit and wait in the Lord. Taking that time to be still, to breathe, to think, to pray, to listen has the potential to remove years of “old paint” from our hearts and minds. It is in the waiting that we give Him more time and room to move. He is working and moving in the midst of our “nothing”. 

So let the paint thinner soak in on that next project. Let’s sit and abide in Him. Even if you can’t see or feel it, He is making you like new. He is restoring you.