"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside
but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.
In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous
but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
(Matthew 23:27-28)
I had a practical lesson in “looking on the inside rather than the outside” recently. I was in the market for a new home. I had made the decision to move from the home I had built more than a decade ago with its rather large yard in which I had planted LOTS of shrubs and flowers to a patio home or condominium, preferably all on one level, where someone else would care for the yard and shovel the snow. (Get the picture?) So, I had been looking.
After viewing a number of places, all either multi-level or condos in a high-rise building, I finally found one that had everything on my list. It was a condo, but all ground level. After looking at three different units in this same complex (over a period of several months), I found one that was done in the color scheme I wanted and had an “extra” library room, which I would use as an office. The exterior was stucco, and looked very “Florida.” Now, that just HAD to be for me!
When I went back with a friend to do another look at everything before making an offer, something just wasn’t right on the inside. The first realization was that something was not right inside me. (Spirit check!) As I focused on it, while I loved the exterior, the cute patio, the landscaping, and the wonderful storage area built in the oversized garage, something wasn’t right INSIDE the house. The paint was fresh and the color would work wonderfully for me. It had crown molding and other “extra” features. But what I began to realize was that I felt cramped walking through it. Other than the oversized master bedroom (with a less than oversized closet!), the rooms were very small. The living room area had a couch and two chairs and even that made it difficult to walk through. The dining area could barely hold the table, chairs, and hutch. And as I began to really look at the kitchen, there was enough room for dishes and some food – or some pots & pans – or some Tupperware. (Did you catch the “or” statements? Where would you put the other things? And then there are all those appliances and baking things, etc.) There just was not enough room ON THE INSIDE to be able to enjoy living there.
So, I chose to abandon all my dreams and visions of living there and pulling up to my Florida-looking home each day – in one of “THE” subdivisions in town. I mean, just the “Wilson Estates Parkway” address was worth something! (Err … I mean “costs” something!)
A couple of weeks later, I learned of a one-story patio home for sale. It was a free-standing house. At initial glance, not nearly as “nice” (interpret that “impressive”). It has a very light gray (almost white) vinyl siding and a white concrete wall across the front to enclose the private courtyard. From the street all you see is the garage, the concrete wall, and the roof. Very “bland” looking.
But step inside!
It is open, spacious, very light & bright. What the two places had in common were the gas fire place that lights at the flip of a switch, being a single-story with a “safe room,” oversized garage, and a very large master bedroom. There, the similarities end.
As I sit typing this, I am sitting in my living room (yes, I bought the patio home) that, as currently configured, could seat 12 with room for more. Behind it there is plenty of room for the dining table & chairs, hutch, curio cabinet, and piano. (No, I never figured out where I would put the piano in the other one!) In addition, there is room for six bar stools at the marble bar that corners the kitchen.
Not only do I have room for all my dishes, pots & pans, Tupperware, baking dishes and appliances, I have room to spare in my kitchen. I am thinking of putting either a small (two-seater) table or a work island in it.
It does not have an extra “library” room to use as an office, but that’s okay. The master bedroom is SO large that the office is at one end of it with an oversized chair and ottoman between the bed and the office area. The guest bedroom is larger than the master bedroom was in my previous home – as is its private bathroom and walk-in closet. Then there are the two walk-in closets in the master bedroom as well as the utility room with a separate storage area and the unfinished machine room with yet more storage area and the oversized garage with, you guessed it, yet more storage area. WOW!
Add it up, and there is about 1000 square feet more space in this patio home than in the condo I originally wanted. (I’ve lived in several places that didn’t have 1000 square feet total – much less “1000 more”!)
Everyone who has come to see it is amazed, because …
“It just doesn’t look that big from the outside!”
I realized that I would spend my time INSIDE my home – not outside looking at it. The outside might represent my “house,” but the inside would be my “home.”
Likewise, the real “me” is who I am on the inside – not the front I try to paint on the outside. No matter how good (“beautiful”) we look on the outside, it is on the inside that the fruit of our character is grown. Am I filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as outlined in Galatians 5:22-23? Or full of hypocrisy and everything unclean?
Let’s all make sure we pay more attention to what we are on the inside … who we truly are … not just what we look like to others. I really like a quote I saw recently and I will close with it.
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation,
because your character is what you really are,
while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
(Coach John Wooden)
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