Repurposed

Who else is an avid HGTV lover? I don’t watch tv much nowadays but if you ever caught me, there were only two options: Law & Order SVU (the best hands down) or one of the many home flip and restoration shows. My favorites were The Property Brothers, Love It or List It (with Hilary and David – I don’t know who those new people are), and Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna (I just love them!). I was always intrigued with how they found properties and spaces that weren’t so appealing and functional, yet would remake them into something purposeful and beautiful. Most of the homeowners on Love It or List It decided to love their homes and keep them once Hilary showed them the hidden potential in what they already had in their possession.

I have a friend, who though he doesn’t have a show, is specializing in remaking torn-down materials into useful and scenic buildings and crafts too. One day a group of us were helping him make a wall frame for a new project. As I stood and looked around at all the beautiful wood pieces, I asked him where he had found them. He told me that he sought out old barns and homes with decks people were tearing down, and he went and collected them. Pieces that were no longer wanted and abandoned, had now found themselves in the arms of someone who saw value in them. I won’t forget what he said to me as he spoke about the great collection he was so proud of: “I repurpose everything. Everything is repurposed. You know the saying, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

Pieces that were no longer wanted and abandoned, had now found themselves in the arms of someone who saw value in them.

There is a parable in the Bible about a man who uncovers a great treasure in a field (Matthew 13:44). Seeing its value, he hides it then goes to sell all he has so that he can return to purchase the land. It struck me that the account says he went and sold all he had with joy. Think about all the things you have in your possession – perhaps a home, vehicles, clothes, jewelry, dining and bedding sets, furniture and entertainment pieces, special equipment and tools, and maybe even rare artifacts. Now think about the kind of treasure you would have to find in a field to implore you to sell ALL you had and to do it with great joy just so you could have that hidden treasure.

Some people have said that the man in the parable is representative of followers of Christ who leave the life they once lived to come after Him for a life abandoned to God. It was more recently that I heard a few pastors share that the man was most likely Jesus. That he was the one who gave up all He had, leaving His kingdom in heaven, laying down His divinity to take on the nature of man, and abandoning all His desires to solely do what God had asked of Him; this namely being to live a perfect life so that he could offer His as the only sacrifice sufficient to satisfy the wrath of God for the sin of the world, for your sin and mine. Jesus believed you were that valuable – valuable enough to give His life and last breath so that you could access eternal life through Him.

If you’ve had a journey anything like mine, then you may struggle to see yourself worth that kind of sacrifice. But I want you to remember the parable. It said that the man hid the treasure then went and sold all he had so he could come back and retrieve it. If we rewrote our stories through God’s lens I wonder what we’d see. I believe instead of seeing ourselves as set aside as useless or thrown away like trash as people and circumstances may have made us feel, we’d see ourselves as hidden. That the reason our value wasn’t made apparent to those lovers or friends or employers was ultimately for our protection because in their hands we’d become something God never intended. Perhaps man did set us aside as useless or throw us away as trash, but not God. He has great use for us and sees great value in us.

If we rewrote our stories through God’s lens, I wonder what we’d see.

Through Christ, we can have a new and repurposed life. Second Corinthians 5:17 states, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come!” When Christ becomes our Savior and Lord He makes us whole and leads us in the way that restores our significance and glorifies His name. Like how we used to use the members of our bodies for wickedness, but through His transforming power, we now use them for righteousness. Or like how we previously allowed people and relationships to define our value as worthless, but now God restores our sight and allows us to see our true identity and value in Him. Or like how we thought we might build our little kingdoms, but God helps us tear ours down so we can help build His.

There’s so much language in the Word of God about building and construction. One of the things God is constantly building and remaking is you. Ephesians 2:8-10 states, “For it is by grace, you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” In the New Living Translation, instead of workmanship, they use the word masterpiece. When we allow God to be the Architect of our lives, He shapes us into works of art. He takes what was broken down and deemed discardable about our old lives and makes something good and beautiful. He repurposes us for we are His treasured possession hidden in fields.

Did you know you have masterpiece potential? Believe that you do; you just haven’t been uncovered yet. What about your life is fragmented, damaged, and still under your construction that you need to place in the hands of the Great Architect to make new?

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