Tolerating Jesus

Sometimes I get to the point where I find that I'm tolerating Jesus in my life. The words "tolerate/toleration" have never settled well on my ears...
Like a landlord who rents out his spaces, there's that reluctance to serve his tenants unless they, of course, are paying him their dues. The Bible describes that, for the Christian, the human body is a physical home of the Spiritual form of God. And I find myself assuming the role of a reluctant landlord at times, as my skepticism sometimes grows of this wild tenant.
Will He take care of what I entrust to Him? Will He keep quiet in the night hours? Will He pay up when I expect Him to pay up? Will He keep "His end of the bargain"? And slowly, I approach that mindset where I tolerate this "unpredictable tenant."

"Maybe," my thoughts ponder, "that I can house this tenant but cut His control of utilities that I could otherwise offer Him when He goes beyond what my initial deal was with Him... I can tolerate him, but I won't cater to His unusual nature."

And thankfully, this whole mode of living is flipped on it's back by the Wild One's nature:

"Therefore , since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."

The landlord signs over everything that he has, giving the Tenant monopoly over all properties and utilities, trusting that this Tenant knows love better than anything that the landlord has ever experienced. The need for the landlord to collect has come to an end. His desire to collect rent had clouded out the view of his own many outstanding debts. The debts that before he'd never seen, were paid off by this wild Tenant... something that he'd never experienced before.

What a wonderful surprise to my 'tolerating' heart, that what I had once pictured as my confinement and heaviness was in fact my wonderful deliverance. Of course, I often can't see what the wonderful 'Tenant' will do with the properties I've given to Him. When I feel like listening, He always lets me know, if not ahead of time.

Over past years, He's chosen to raze a good deal of what I'd built up, and I'm excited to see what He plans on doing next.