At least you would think that after God finished working on your sins at conversion when He showed you how sinful you were that He would let it rest. Well, guess what! He doesn't. Because we belong to Christ, God is continually remodeling us into the image of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Because we are human, often we do not change unless we are forced to change. When things are going good we don't listen to what He is telling us. It takes trouble or trials to get our attention.
In a devotion book, I ran across this comment concerning the growth of a Christian from C.S. Lewis on Mere Christianity Book IV, Chapter 9:
When troubles come along...he is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; but why now? Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us.C.S. Lewis continues on with an illustration of a house. He says imagine yourself as a house. God comes to rebuild the house and at first you understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right, stopping the leaks and those things you knew needed to be repaired so you were not surprised. Then He starts knocking down walls in ways that really hurt and it doesn't seem to make sense to you. God is building quite a different house from the one you thought you were. He is building a new wing here, putting on the extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards, etc. You pictured yourself as a little cottage but He is building a grand palace.
You have no idea what God is doing but trust assured the blueprint was designed specifically for you and it will become a most magnificent creation!
