Last week I was blessed to have some time to work on house renos. Purchasing a fixer-upper of an old farm house has meant some very interesting renovation finds. This trend continued as I began renovating the old summer kitchen off of the back of the main house. While the main house was structurally sound and true (meaning level or straight), the old summer kitchen was another matter. A combination of a poor foundation, improper work on load bearing walls (all now fixed btw), etc, the centre of the summer kitchen bowed considerably meaning new level windows looked as if they were out (an optical allusion). To give you an idea of just how crooked the old summer kitchen was, its walls were 1” out of level on the vertical over 4 feet and the centre of the wall sagged 3–4” from the ends.

Every time I went to fix something I kept saying, “It shouldn’t be this way!”

The Bible says much about crookedness. It speaks of crooked speech, poverty as better than being crooked yet with great riches and of a crooked generation (Dt 32:5; Acts 2:40, 13:10; Phil 2:15). However, talk of “crookedness” usually refers to something or someone being out of plumb with God’s Law or intended design. It is twisted, perverted, crooked. This imagery is frequently employed in Wisdom literature. Three examples will suffice:

• Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out. (Prov 10:9)
• The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. (Prov 11:3)
• Those of crooked heart are an abomination to the Lord, but those of blameless ways are his delight. (Prov 11:20)

Being crooked is not a good thing!

And like my summer kitchen, we look around at the world and see it too is crooked. It is not as it should be. Unlike my renovations which seek to mend or fix up an old structure, that is not the promise of the Gospel. In the Gospel, Jesus promises by His Spirit to make us new, to transform us—language far more powerful than a mere makeover or renovation. We need forgiveness for our crookedness and His Spirit’s renewing power, otherwise when the chief building inspector comes on that Great Day, with the measuring tape of His Law, who will be able to stand when His just judgement falls? Certainly not the crooked, they will collapse under the weight of His wrath. However, the righteous, the straight, the believer in Jesus, he will stand on that great day, Christ bearing Him up and being the righteousness he could never be.
​
May we look to Christ with the promise of being made straight and true in accordance with His truth.

As a child I sometimes watched the show “This Old House” with my parents. My father was a carpenter and we all loved history and so this show had a special family appeal (my wife and I now occasionally watch the British show called “restoration home” where families save historic sites).
I never thought this would be the case, but the Crockers purchased (by the grace of God!) a fixer-upper farmhouse on April 1 during a pandemic! This was no April fool’s joke either but the real deal.

We are so grateful to the Lord for the small yet faithful army helpers (and many prayer warriors sustaining us as Aaron and Hur sustained Moses [Ex 17:12]).
​
Here are a handful of things the Lord has been teaching me/us:

• The faithfulness of God
  • It is only by God’s grace that we were able to purchase this home. It was at his prompting we even inquired and discovered it was within our budget after all. And throughout the project He mercifully sent savings our way in surprising forms to enable us to be able to afford the renos. Great is His faithfulness!
• “Seek ye first His righteousness”
  • Renovating a house, and indeed home ownership generally, can be an idolatrous pitfall. Indeed Home Depot and TV channels such as HGTV feed off of people’s “pride in possessions.” I continually have been singing the song ‘seek ye first’ to tune my heart to sing God’s praise vs. committing idolatry.
• Patience
  • Rome wasn’t built in a day and a fixer upper is certainly not completed over night. Timelines, unexpected encounters, niggly fixes, etc, all teach us to depend on the Lord to produce the fruit of patience in our lives by His Spirit.
• The Kindness of God’s people
  • When we decided to take on a fixer upper we had countless offers of help. These evaporated as Covid-19 erupted. Nevertheless, we’ve been blessed with a small but faithful army of helpers who, maintaining proper social distancing(!), have laboured generously to help move our project along. Without them the project would have been impossible. Most of these helpers have been from the Church. This reminds me of a cherished verse from Gal 6:10. Thank the Lord for His people!
• The Power of Prayer Support
  • There were many dear folks who had wanted to help but because of social isolation and quarantine have been unable to. However, many of them have assured us of their continued prayers for the project. I can testify that the Lord has used them to speed the project along unhindered, keep my spirit right and strengthen me (many late nights and early mornings with ministry intermingled).
• The Drive to Provide
  • As a husband and father I have a God given mandate to pastor, protect and provide for my family. Rebekah has been unable to do much for the project because renos and a toddler are not meant to go together, however, I delight in this offering for my family, to provide them with a home.
• A Picture of God’s redemptive work
  • This will be the subject of another BLOG post, however, it is a great reminder that our lives are naturally such a wreck that we don’t just need a new coat of paint but a complete renovation.

We pray that the “white house,” as it has come to be known, will continue to be a source of blessing and teaching and that the Lord will use it for His glory, our good and His work in Markdale.