It doesn’t even sound like something to hope for. In our culture “Salvation” sounds incredibly outdated and restrictive. Like if I have found salvation, I have agreed to follow a certain set of rules, and I have agreed to shove those rules into every person I run across whether it makes a mess or not.

Today in our house, salvation looks a whole lot like an empty crawl space. Why? Because for the 17 years we have lived here it has been real easy to shove the old stuff into that little space under our house. And it made a mess.

Now we are into the hard work of cleaning it all out. And that’s only going to happen with a s ***load of endurance.

One way to describe salvation is cleaned out soul storage space. For some people, that might come as a big blast of light like a squeegee cleaning off a dirty window. For the rest of us, it’s the long slow discovering, sorting and cleaning out that empties up the space inside. And that’s only going to happen with a s***load of endurance.

But it’s worth it, because empty space leaves room for a foundation of full of hope.

“And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.”

Romans 5:4