On at least one occasion of flicking through TV channels, we have all likely stumbled across the channel where people are always aggressively busting out doors and windows to make an old house look brand new. Maybe you happened to enter this world of tiles, wall colors, room aesthetics, and budgets by accident. But either way, I’ll venture to guess that for at least five minutes, your attention was flirted away by the question of all questions…what kind of house are
these people with a nanoscopic budget, three kids, five pets, and a desire to shrink their commute into the city for work but also have a she-shed in their backyard going to build?
Ok, maybe that’s oddly and possibly too specific… but the point is, we have all sat wondering what kind of house would stand at the end of a home makeover. Out of all the planning and designing and mishaps and setbacks, what kind of house will be produced?
I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to say that this question is so like the questions we ask in our own lives – or rather, the single question we spend our entire lives trying to answer. What kind of person are we building? What kind of character and legacy will make up the potted plants and doors of our exterior? What kind of values and beliefs will decide the structure of who
we are and what we’re standing on? What kind of stories and experiences will be framed across the walls of our hearts and minds? Who will we let in and who will we lose – by choice or chance – in the process of building?
Maybe what we’re really asking is, who are we becoming? For a lot of us (and I’ll raise my hand, if you won’t), the question of who we are and who we’re supposed to be and what we’re becoming feels just as complex and daunting as staring at an open plot of land with nothing but a few sketches and a pile of lumber.
If that’s you, thank you for being here. If you’ll give me a few pages and a little time, I’d love to tell you about a new blueprint for the home of your heart – a makeover that doesn’t even require a single hammer or sketch on your part.
Foundations and the Three Little Pigs
The infamous story of three little pigs who built their homes against the indomitable strength of a big, bad wolf is one that has been retold over generations. In elementary school, it was only a silly tale of pigs and their hapless attempts at building their homes, but the deeper message of the story taught us something very important. The foundation – what a house stands on and what it’s
made out of – is its most essential element.
Our hearts are like a home. We put all our dreams, goals, emotions, heartbreaks and heart leaps in there. Our hearts don’t necessarily have to fend off any big, bad wolves, but the message holds true. The foundation matters.
I’m going to ask you a question, and there’s no judgement for whatever your answer is… what is the current foundation of your heart?
A few years ago, my answer would have been the approval of others. When I was younger, it felt like the authentic heart that I shared with people was never good enough. Never good enough to make them stick around or keep them from creating words and actions that cut deep. This left a lot of lacerations on my heart. My attempts to stitch up all the lacerations evolved into a desperate search for people to clarify my value. The more I searched, the more the foundation of
my heart became filled with even deeper lacerations infected with perfectionism, bitterness, and reckless people pleasing. It looked rock solid on the outside but every puff of a difficult circumstance or hurtful word sent my whole heart caving in a little more. Until it finally just crashed altogether in my sophomore year of college, and I realized the foundation I’d built the home of my heart on was no longer sufficient.
In the Bible, Jesus actually talks about foundations – not in the three little pigs sense but in the heart sense. During his famous Sermon on the Mount speech, Jesus shares a story about two men who built two different kinds of houses.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
(Matthew 7:24-27)
For their whole lives, the crowd-goers had been taught all sorts of things about what it meant to have a good heart. They’d been taught that good, holy people pray super long public prayers, hate their enemies and take revenge, are wealthy, and can follow the strictest of rules about work and clothes and food. But Jesus, much to their shock, preached a different kind of message. One about holiness that comes only from seeking God, prayers that were more like conversations
with God rather than showy scripts, and loving our enemies and letting God take care of the justice we desire. The main lesson of his teaching was that, whether thief or priest, we are all spiritually broken and poor. That our brokenness and weaknesses are not something to mask with shame or piety. That God actually promises us the eternal peace, strength, and refuge of heaven when we bring all of us (the good, bad, and the ugly) to Him and admit our need for Him (Matt.
5:3). When we let Him be our foundation.
These are the teachings that Jesus was referring to in the story about the two men and their houses. As theologian Charles Spurgeon puts it, “both [men] undertook to build houses, both of them persevered in building, both of them finished their houses.” The difference was their foundation. One man built his foundation on the immovable consistency of the Rock (not Dwayne Johnson) – Jesus. The other man built his foundation on the shaky, insecure foundation of sand. When the storms of life came – loss and grief, disappointment, pain, depression and
anxiety, failure and betrayal – only the house that leaned on God persevered through the storms of life.
Often we don’t realize what we’ve been building the home of our hearts on until we’re staring right into the eye of a storm in our lives. Like the sunrise every morning, storms are inevitable. We can’t chase the storms and big, bad wolves away, so we must build our hearts on a foundation that lasts.
Hiring the Contractor
Up until my sophomore year, I had been the sole contractor of my heart home. But being your own contractor, I found out, can be discouraging and overwhelming. It also never exactly leads to the kind of home you’d feature on an Instagram reel.
At my lowest, I received a knock at the door of my heart (and no, it wasn’t Chip and Joanna Gaines knocking). It was Jesus, standing at the door of my lopsided and wind-beaten heart home, offering to be my new Contractor.
That same Contractor is standing at the door of your heart today. Here’s what He offers us.
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will
come in and eat with that person, and they with me.
Revelation 3:20
That word “anyone” is key. He doesn’t choose which house to come in based on how easy it would be to fix or what will maintain His home makeover reputation. Jesus, a world renowned contractor, stands outside every home and waits to make the same offer to every heart beyond the doors.
Before he even starts ripping out all the tiles and comparing color swatches against our walls, He offers to break bread with us. To sit across from us and hear the story of our heart homes – every break, every build, every wind and storm, every guest and every deserter. He already knows the story, but He gives each of us a chance to tell it. (Psalm 139, 1 Peter 5:17) And then He gives us all new floor plans and designs for our heart homes. He doesn’t make us purchase the rock to
build our heart’s foundation on nor does He shake His head every time he finds a fault (Lam. 3:22-23). In love and with perfect grace, He heals every rusted, crushed, and battered thing inside of our hearts and makes it new (2 Cor. 5:17, Eph. 2:10).
And here’s the best part of the offer…He makes the home of our hearts complete, lacking absolutely nothing. Not an extra closet to hide our pain or a fridge to freeze our feelings. Storms will come, but we will remain complete in Him (Col. 2:10, Psalm 23:1).
So, who are we becoming? What kind of person are we building?
The answer lies not in the career we end up choosing or what others think of us. The answer lies in who and what we choose to shape us, to shape our hearts. Or rather — whether we choose to open the door for the only One who is both the perfect foundation and contractor for a heart built to stand on any mountain and in every valley, through every storm – for a heart built to last.
Overwhelmed 