I Like What You’ve Done With the Place

By Cynthia Ruchti –

Some of the home improvement shows on television invite neighbors and prospective home buyers to walk through a house both before and after a major remodel. On their first trip, they’re filmed saying things like, “This room is so dark.” “What is that smell?” “Eww. Disgusting kitchen.” “Is that mold on the windowsill?” “The décor looks like something from the 60s, and not in a retro way.”

Then the remodel team shows up with paintbrushes, carpenters, designers, and granite countertops. They knock out view-prohibiting walls, replace or reinvigorate scarred hardwood floors, patch holes, paint walls and woodwork, and install state-of-the-art appliances. A designer sweeps in to stage the house with appealing furniture and distinctive lighting.

A second open house welcomes the same group of people who originally had little positive to say about the home. This time through, they make comments that in essence communicate, “I love what you’ve done with the place!”

Fresh colors. Better traffic flow. Clean. Crisp. Welcoming.

I’ve been thinking about the remodel concept since landing on a verse of Scripture that hadn’t drawn my attention before, for some reason.

Psalm 41:3 reads, “The Lord will strengthen them when they are lying in bed, sick. You will completely transform the place where they lie ill” (CEB).

Completely transform. God can completely transform a sick room. I wonder what that would look like.

The stale air would be replaced with the sweet fragrance of His presence. And that transforms everything. He knocks down walls blocking our view of Him and of the hope-filled future. He sands away the scarred places, digs and scratches from our experience. He patches holes, lines the sick room with a fresh perspective, stronger colors, evidence of the courage He offers in abundance. He lights the room.

In His Hands, a sick room can be “completely transformed.” The illness may remain. The diagnosis may be unchanged. But the place where the sick lie can be so thoroughly revolutionized by God’s presence that the suffering one will rise on one elbow to say, “I love what You’ve done with the place.”

PRAYER: Father God, it has sometimes been me in that sick room. Forgive me for not always noticing what You did with the place. And for those I care about who are lying in bed, sick, right now, I pray Your presence would be so strongly evidenced that their pain and distress are transformed in Your light.”

“The Lord will strengthen them when they are lying in bed, sick. You will completely transform the place where they lie ill” (Psalm 41:3 CEB).