It was a week from Passover and the walls were closing in on me. My quest to eradicate leaven had left me discouraged and anxious. The more I dug in and searched for crumbs, the more I found glaring flaws in my home and myself.

I sat on my couch horrified, looking from unfinished project to unfinished project. Each was a manifestation of my fickleness and lack of determination: The paint on the kitchen walls where I missed with the second coat, the dented baseboard, the tiles I desperately wanted to replace. Oh, and who could forget the manhole cover sized disaster in the ceiling where the sink upstairs had overflowed… Not to mention the planned projects we hadn’t even begun. I felt myself filling to overflowing with disgust and contempt for my house and my character.

I know now that God took pity on my troubled mind, because a scripture came to me unexpectedly. Philippians 1:6 tells us that we can be “confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (New International Version). Upon this revelation, my thought process changed immediately.

My mind went back to three years before, when we first toured the lonely, foreclosed house that would become our home. I remembered walking through the gate to the music of frogs singing sweetly from the woods. I fell in love immediately.

Walking through the house, I surveyed its scars and wondered about the stories behind them. The previous owners had apparently attempted to renovate, but the evidence of their abandoned or botched projects was everywhere. In the bank’s care, the house’s vital systems had all been allowed to fail, leading to more destruction. The buying process felt like resurrecting a dead body. When the furnace, the electricity, and the water were finally working, the still, stagnant house came to life with the hum of breath and flowing blood. We immediately began to clean, repair, and renovate the home with every bit of spare time and money we could muster. The vision of its potential burned bright in our minds.

Before we invite Christ to live in us, we are like vacant, neglected houses. Jesus is the loving homemaker who will not abandon us half-finished. He breathes new life into us and invigorates us with His Spirit. He washes us until we are white as snow. He knows the plans He has for us.

For many Christians, growth and improvement can become discouraging and overwhelming. As with my home’s renovations, our initial zeal can lose its momentum when we hit an obstacle or plateau. The spring holy days can be especially difficult as we confront our flaws and evaluate our growth. When we compare ourselves to Jesus Christ’s perfection, we see how far we have to go.

But part of the confidence of Philippians 1:6 is that we trust that Christ knows what we are, what we were, and what we could be. He will keep working on us, for as long as we will let him, until we reach completion. He is patient and kind, working with us gently to overcome our flaws and create the home in us that He knows we could be.