Everything's Upstairs!

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othing tests a family’s mettle more than going through a remodeling project.  I should know because I survived three such projects at our home on Main Street.  Every time our family grew, the house grew right along with it.  We added rooms, divided rooms; carpeted, painted, wall papered, enclosed porches, and added a driveway.  For the twenty five years I lived there though, no change was more dramatic than our last remodeling project.

This project involved enclosing a carport to make a den, enclosing our sundeck to create a sunroom, installing a bay window in our living room, installing a spiral stair case to connect the upstairs and the downstairs, and remodeling the front room of our basement into a bedroom for me.  The house also received new carpet and new paint from ceiling rafter to floor joist.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, was overlooked.  This was a complete overhaul of our home and when we were finished it looked much different from the house I grew up in.

Finally, after twenty-five years, I had my own room and my brother had his.  We shared a room through college but when this last project was completed, I had control of the downstairs.  The front room of the basement, converted into a bedroom, was mine and the new den was adjacent to it.  The backdoor provided me with my own entrance and with the exception of a bathroom and a kitchen; I had my own little apartment.

The novelty soon wore off, however, because every time I needed something, I had to climb the stairs.  If I wanted to eat, I had to go upstairs to the kitchen or the pantry.  If I wanted to see my parents, I had to go upstairs to their room or to the sunroom to talk to them.  My brother’s and my sister’s rooms were on the main floor so I had to climb the stairs to pay them a visit.  When I needed a shower, I went upstairs and so on and so forth!

You get the picture don’t you?  Everything I needed was upstairs and I spent the vast majority of my time working out on that spiral staircase.  It really wasn’t that bad.  I enjoyed my time downstairs but several times during the day, I had to go upstairs in order to take care of all the necessities of life.  Food, relationships, and provisions were all upstairs which meant I spent a lot of time there!

There is a great lesson to be learned from my childhood home.  It is a direct parallel to life and the relationship we have with our Heavenly Father.  Far too often we are content to live our lives on the ground-level of existence, comfortable and content with the circumstances life has afforded us.  The sad part is that everything we need, all our necessary provision, the need for relationship, and the very staples of life are to be found upstairs!

Our Heavenly Father wants us to live life on a higher level than the ground floor.  His plans for us are so much larger and greater than we can ever imagine.  The provisions He has for us are far beyond our ability to imagine and the relationship He longs to share with us is far deeper and richer than anything we have ever known before.

Jesus spoke of this in Chapter 5 of John’s gospel.  In one of his many conversations with the Pharisees, Jesus stated very plainly that he had come to bring life but that men refused to come to him to receive it.  In John 5:39-40, Jesus says the following, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” 

There is a determined sadness in this statement.  The Pharisees were the religious leaders of their day. No one knew the Scriptures better than they and no one should have been more aware of the Messiah than these learned men.  Yet for all their searching of the Scriptures, for all their knowledge of God and His ways, they completely missed the boat.  They searched the Scriptures diligently, looking for signs of the Messiah’s coming and all the while he stood before them. 

The real tragedy here is that these learned men refused God’s invitation to have life.  They were content to live on the ground floor while God had so much more waiting for them upstairs.  With the coming of Jesus, God installed a staircase which allowed them direct access to all His provisions.  All they had to do was climb the stairs but they refused to do so.  All they needed was standing there, staring them in the eyes, and they refused to accept God’s invitation.

My mom and dad have built a new home and moved away from Main Street.  However, when I am home, I ride by the house and look through the windows.  The people living there don’t know me and I don’t know them.  Yet I wonder if they ever stop and think how important that spiral staircase in the back of the house is.  I wonder if they realize that without it they would have no access to any of the provisions necessary to life in that house. 

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hen my thoughts turn inward and I ask myself if I understand the importance and the significance of the staircase God has provided in Jesus Christ so that I can have direct access to the throne of grace.  Am I content to live on the ground floor of life or do I understand that everything I need is on the next level?  All I have to do is climb the stairs.  I think I’ll do that right now!  How about you?