Sometimes when I look at my life, a lot of times I can see the ugliness of my heart more clearly than the hope that God gives me through Christ. Sometimes it takes the right sermon, sometimes the right passage of Scripture, the right song, but this week it was the right Netflix show that gave me a vision for God’s work in my life.
Motel Makeover is a gentle, charming escape from reality, or it seems at first, a show about an energizing makeover punctuated with frequent glasses of rosé. But over the course of the show, the two “moteliers” (who are amazing for how much they’ve accomplished at such a young age) actually do wrestle with—not just survival through a hellish remodel—but actual joy in being a team, gratitude, and friendship for the people they are working with, and deep love and delight in the spaces they are producing. And this love can be a refreshing example of what God’s love can look like in our lives.
The motel, at the beginning of the show, is basically a wreck. It hadn’t been remodeled since the ‘80s, and only someone with a vivid sense of possibility would ever take on the task of modernizing and beautifying it. Throughout each step in the remodel, and each setback, it takes the imagination and love of these two women to carry them through. What they are in love with isn’t the hotel in its current state; it’s their vision of what it will be. They are deeply delighted with the enjoyment their customers will have, the relationships that will be strengthened, memories made. This love for what can be keeps them going.
We know that God is working in our hearts throughout our lives with his love, beautifying us to his glory. But a lot of times when I look at my heart, all I see is the wreckage of my sin nature. God has already purchased us. What if he sees, instead of blight, the beauty that has already formed where he touched? What if, instead of giving me pointers about how best to manage my sin, God is singing, and hoping I can hear too: singing the triumph song of a life completed. A life made beautiful by his love. Ornate, calm space in my heart for God to walk in, and the highest beauty of all: love for God and love for the world. Maybe right now that love is just a paint splotch on a wall, or one trendy lamp. But someday my heart will be finished. So God can sing and laugh now, although he doesn’t need the rosé to help him celebrate.