I’m listening to my husband and my son walk around the house fixing things. They declared to me, “We are fixing the house!” There’s talk of plungers, squeaky hinges, baking soda and vinegar in the sinks, screwdrivers, and safety rules about the garbage disposal. It makes my heart happy. My husband is being intentional to show his son how to perform basic maintenance tasks on a house. My ten-year-old could turn off the water to the house quicker than I could now.

It’s making me think. How often do we intentionally focus on the things we need to take care of with regard to our spiritual house? How often do we follow someone else around for the purpose of learning about God? God created his church to function as a family, with elder and younger members. There are people who have walked ahead of us and they have gleaned wisdom from God and from their actual real life experience. We get to relate to each other in meaningful ways, equipping and encouraging each other to walk in the truth and the light.

Just the other day, someone younger than me asked my advice about something. I prayed through it and felt confident in what scripture said about that thing. I’d had a sort of similar situation in my own life, too, so there was some small bit of personal experience thrown in. But in trust, I also ran my advice by my own mentor—someone who I trust to give me advice that is God-honoring and true, even if it’s hard sometimes. She helped me clarify and refine my thoughts while confirming they were based on scripture. When I talked with my younger friend later we had a little giggle that this word of advice had gone through a chain of testing. God worked through three of his daughters to help us see Him more clearly. Even as we sought God earnestly in our own right, we also depended on each other.

God cares about our holiness. He cares about our house—that it functions properly and is full of light. And the way we “fix” our spiritual house is by surrendering our will to God, acknowledging and repenting of our sin, and giving God the freedom to forgive, heal, and transform us. Sometimes we need others in the family of God to help us walk down these healing paths.

So today, I might spend some time in prayer, confessing and repenting about the things that are clouding my vision of God or are strangling my peace and stealing my joy. I will bask in God’s sweet forgiveness, grace, wisdom, and love. I might call a fellow sister-in-Christ to help me hash through a hard decision, or I’ll ponder what is true about God and my own heart with my husband.

And maybe I will also clean some of the actual windows on my house while my son changes the burnt out light bulbs.

For me, today is about letting in the light.

Hebrews 3:6, 12-14
But Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope…Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

Ephesians 4:24-25
[as you were taught in him] to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Acts 3:19-20
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus.

I John 1:7-9
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.