I know, not as exciting as Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Superman and all the other awesome articles here or soon to be here (all of which I love, by the way), but there is something incredibly compelling about these rehab shows. I don’t know that I can adequately describe how satisfying and wonderful I find every transformation. They start with an old, ugly, dilapidated home (the worse the house is at the beginning, the better I like it) – something which truly terrifies the buyers – and a vision. First reactions to seeing this mess are almost universally the same: “This is terrible! Impossible! What were you thinking in showing us this house?” And calmly the visionary rehabbers reply: “There’s so much potential here! I know you can’t see it right now, but you will love it when we’re done! Trust me.”
And so it begins. Floors and ceilings are ripped out. Walls are torn down. Rooms are rearranged and reimagined. And problems are found – many times massive ones. Foundations have to be reset, roofs completely redone, plumbing and electrical systems totally replaced and it’s all expensive and time consuming. The clients want perfection without stress or effort. They want everything under budget and ahead of schedule. But the rehabbers know better than to leave these unseen, secret, less than glamorous issues be. They must be dealt with! Who cares what kind of granite counter tops you have if the house burns down because of an electrical fire? Who cares if we finish a week early with everything looking great, only to discover that the basement constantly floods with sewer water and one side of the house is sinking?
The buyers resist. They whine and complain. They are often ungrateful and hard to work with. They panic and consistently refuse to trust! Nevertheless, the visionaries persist. And, when all is said and done, the house is gorgeously unrecognizable.
That’s us. It is. Jesus is trying to rehab us and we… Well, we are the difficult buyers and the disaster of a house all rolled into one. This is both the beauty and the pain of a passage in the Bible like 2 Corinthians 5:17; God is promising to rebuild us! He’s passionately going after us, and telling us we’ll be completely new creations, that “the old is gone, and the new has come.” And though it will hurt, we’ll be so amazed by the change at the end we’ll hardly be able to believe it.
Some of us, like Paul, might call ourselves the worst of all sinners. Every human on the planet would say that, if we really saw the depths of our brokenness, and Satan will agree with an evil whisper: “Yes, your foundation is crumbling. Your electrical system is so outdated it’s dangerous. Your plumbing should be completely replaced. There’s no way that God could do anything with you.” But despite it all (or maybe because of it) we’re the ones Jesus goes for! He sees us and His eyes light up! And He says, with calculated defiance against the lies we so quickly believe: “There’s so much potential here! I know you don’t see it right now, but you will be amazing when I’m done! Trust Me.”
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[amazon text=Extreme Makeover: Home Edition&asin=B000AJJNJU] and many more home rehab reality shows are available on DVD on Amazon.com, and buying through this affiliate link helps support Redeeming Culture at no additional cost to you. Thank you!
