Fixer Upper

Photo courtesy of  HGTV

My absolute favorite show on tv right now is HGTV’s “Fixer Upper”.  I am all about shiplap, French doors, and hardwood floors these days! And don’t even get me started on the stars of the show, Chip and Joanna Gaines.  These two make me want to pack up my family, move to Waco, Texas, and raise baby goats after every episode!

If you haven’t caught the show yet (Which, really, we need to talk. I am available to watch a marathon with you on a Saturday afternoon to get you up speed!) Chip and Joanna take prospective buyers through a few really run down houses.  (Get it – fixer uppers?!) As they tour each house, Chip and Joanna (let’s be honest, mostly Joanna) give their clients their vision of what the house could be. (And y’all, it always involves hard wood floors throughout. Lol!) Then the clients decide which prospective home will work the best for them, purchase it, then let Chip and Joanna go to work.

At the end of every episode, Chip and Joanna do the “big reveal”. They pull back a giant poster of what the house used to look like to reveal in highly dramatic fashion the newly renovated and much improved house.  (Kinda like pulling back a curtain or an unveiling.) Their clients freak out.  They gasp, jump and scream with glee, and/or stare with awe.  They are astonished at the transformation that has taken place on the inside and out of the property. These people are absolutely in love with their new/old house!

This reminds me of what it is like with God and how He is transforming us.  We are sorta like His fixer uppers!  We can’t really see it in the beginning, how He will grow us, change us, and mold us like Him.  But we trust Him.  We trust His vision.  We give Him permission to do what He wants.  We give Him full reign in ourselves.

Sometimes it isn’t easy.  There are times when the project goes long.  Often there will be a few snags along the way.  Maybe a detour or new element comes in to play. You just never know with fixer uppers, what you will run into.  There’s such mystery, so many unknowns.  But yet, you keep trusting the One with the vision, the One with the experience in this kind of work.

And then…  At the end of that major event, that trial, that season, that life… We are astonished and in love with what God has done!

 "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)

Post by: Marcy Gates