Someone (Len Sullivan) recalls a story from their family history about his grandparents. "In the late 1920s my grandparents married and moved into Grandpa’s old family home. It was a clapboard house with a hall down the middle. In the ’30s they decided to tear down the old house and build another to be their home for the rest of their lives.
Much to my grandmother’s dismay, many of the materials of the old house were reused in their new house. They used old facings and doors, and many other pieces of the finishing lumber. Everywhere my grandmother looked, she saw that old house--old doors that wouldn’t shut properly, crown molding split and riddled with nail holes, unfinished window trimming. It was a source of grief to her. All her life she longed for a new house."
"When God brings us into the kingdom, the old way of living must be dismantled and discarded". (David P. Barrett. ed. More Perfect Illustrations For Every Topic And Occasion.. [Citation: Len Sullivan; Tupelo, Mississippi]. "Don't Recycle Old Life¡¨. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 2003, p. 192). How well do we discard "old things" that are a source of grief to us in our spiritual lives? Do we find ourselves trying to rebuild certain parts of our lives with unfruitful things of the past?