Build Back Better

This is not meant to be a political post but I was thinking about the phrase "build back better."  To be honest, I don't know that much about the government program, but the phrase itself, "build back better" makes me think about repentance. Sometimes when we make mistakes it can break us. Break our hearts! Break our spirits. Break our brains. But the goal of repentance is not to get us back to where we are. After all, where we were got us to where we are in the first place. The goal of repentance is to build us back better. When you break a bone as part of the healing process, the body builds back that section of the bone to be stronger than it was before. There are whole martial arts disciplines where the fighters will intentionally break their bones so they can build them back better. This reminds me of one of my favorite CS Lewis quote: "Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." We should never be trying to get back to normal. God has so much more in mind for us than normal. We should always be trying to build back better.