The Queen's Palace

I love this analogy from CS Lewis in his book "Mere Christianity" on page 205 (he says he borrowed it from George MacDonald):
"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 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 going to be made into a decent little cottage; but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

"....we have not yet the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us."Paul tries to explain this in a similar way in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. In verse 9 he says "ye are God's building." In verse 10 it describes Christ "as a wise master builder, [who has] laid the foundation." Paul tells us that we are laborers with Christ, and that we build upon the foundation Christ has laid, and that we should take heed how we build upon that foundation, and that we should not try to lay any other foundation than the one that Christ has set for us. Then he names the things we can use to build upon that foundation---he names stuff like we would relate to in building, i.e. "gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble" but that our work would be made manifest because it would be tried by fire, and in verse 14 "If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward." Meaning how we choose to "build our houses" or live our lives or how we care for our bodies and our spirits here in mortality, will be the reward we receive after this life. And then the most famous verse in 16: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" So, he compares us to the best buildings on this earth...the temples.
In Doctrine & Covenants 76 we learn about the three degrees of glory and that the bodies we possess at the time we attain one of those glories will be a body in accordance with that glory. If we obtain the Telestial glory (compared to the stars) then we obtain a Telestial body. If we obtain a Celestial glory (compared to the Sun in glory) then we will obtain Celestial bodies (verse 70). Our highest goal should be to obtain a Celestial glory or the Celestial Kingdom. That is what we are working towards when we let the Lord come and help build "our house"--to help us gain His kind of perfection. CS Lewis said that this is going to be a hard and painful process, but once we agree, or allow the Lord to work with us, then we cannot expect that He is going to accept less than perfection. Lewis said that a lot of people think they need to be perfect before the Lord can work with them. He said it is quite the opposite, "I think He meant 'The only help I will give is help to become perfect. You may want something less; but I will give you nothing less.'"

I love looking up words in the dictionary even when I already know what they mean, but it leads my pondering into all kinds of wonderful new directions. I looked up the word glory and it says:
Splendor, Exalted or prosperous state, Heavenly bliss.
Glorious is: illustrious, splendid, excellent, delightful.
Wouldn't all these words describe a palace, or a temple?! Who would not want to live in a place of delightfully splendid heavenly bliss?! We've all had ideas of the perfect dream house. I definitely see mine with a Victorian kind of look with lots of windows and various shapes to the outside and towers....and a room at the very top with an awesome view!!!....
...not quite a palace, but mortality seems to want to keep us thinking realistically. The Lord does not want realistically mortal. He wants only the best for each one of us. And we all know that nothing good comes easy. It will be hard work, but it will be worth it. And we should not be discouraged if we sometimes think we are not even close, as CS Lewis said, "The job will not be completed in this life; but He means to get us as far as possible before death."

President Monson put it very well when he said this:
"The master counseled 'Organize yourselves, prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.' Where could any of us locate a more suitable blueprint whereby he or she could wisely & properly build a house to personally occupy throughout eternity? In a very real sense, we are builders of eternal houses. We are apprentices to the trade---not skilled craftsmen. We need divine help if we are to build successfully."

The house we are building needs to be clean and pure now, so the Spirit is able to come and dwell with us as we build. In Proverbs 14:1 it says, " Every wise woman buildeth her house." Sometimes we may spend too much time working on the outside of our houses and not enough time on the inside of our house. In Doctrine & Covenants 101:37 it says that we should "care not for the body, neither the life of the body; but care for the soul, and for the life of the soul." Of course we learn with the Word of Wisdom that taking care of our bodies is very important, not only in not taking in harmful substances, but to eat healthy and exercise. But sometimes we tend to go to excessive lengths and neglect our soul. The Lord is telling us in that scripture that the soul is more important than the body. Our soul is our body and our spirit together--and what we become is how we learn to master the body with our spirits---becoming our soul, and it is our soul that will go on living...it is our ultimate palace.

There's a poem that I like to ponder upon because there is so much meaning to be found in it. It is this:

Let me live in my house by the side of the road.
It's here that the race of man go by
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong, wise, foolish---so am I:
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road.
And be a friend to man.

What I can apply to the meaning of this post from this poem is that instead of worrying or judging how everyone else is building their house, we should live in our own house...by the side of the road...meaning without judging others, or even the progress of our own house compared to others, as it's being built. We also shouldn't try to build our house as the world would build. Our house needs to be off to the side of the mainstream for it will be entirely different from the world's standards, or the mainstream standards. We will stand out. We will be different. We will most likely be ridiculed for the manner in which we are building because it mimics nothing here on earth.
And the last sentence is so important, when we go back to the ultimate source of power...love...and be a friend. Even to those who may ridicule us and not understand what we are building. What better way to build a house that the Lord would want to dwell in, or that will become a palace, than to love everyone. A house wherein Christ may come and dwell. Now that is a delightfully splendid heavenly bliss of a house!