What Your Constant Home Repairs are Really Repairing

If you’re like me, you’ve noticed something is always breaking or needing upkeep around your house. I have to confess it’s been a doozy of a couple of weeks. Oh, man.

(Photo by Photodune)

Stuff wears out. Off the top of my head, here are a few samples from the last two weeks (no kidding):

• I replaced our clothes washer motor.
• My car needed new tires.
• A sprinkler head broke.
• Our mailbox stand needs replacing, so I’m building a new one.
• Our mower needed a new “hood.”
• I replaced the septic tank’s electric pump.

I’ll just stop there. Who knows what’s next? I’m convinced the constant breakdowns and home repairs in our lives are really designed to repair something else.

These are intended for a bigger repair.

What Your Home Repairs are Really Repairing

If you’re like me, it seems we fix one thing just in time to fix another. It literally is never-ending. If we’re not careful, this repeat can turn from discouraging to maddening.

(Photo: By KoS. Own work. GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons)

The words of Jesus do their work on the place that needs most repair: our hearts.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal. —Matthew 6:19–20

Of course Jesus doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t own the things that deteriorate. There is a place for responsibility with the things we own. It’s called stewardship.

Through indolence the rafters sag, and through slackness the house leaks. —Ecclesiastes 10:18

How to Think about Home Repairs

Jesus’ warning not to “store up” refers to the affection in our hearts more than the stuff in our garages.

• Our work must also include investing in eternal things—not just the necessary temporal things like tires and sprinkler heads.
• As Christians, we need the constant reminder that this world is not our home.
• Our home repairs are really repairing our hearts—because they refocus our perspective that this world is passing away.

I’ll think about that this weekend as I repair the next thing.

Tell me what you think: How do you focus on heaven while living on earth? To leave a comment, just click here.