Why We Love HGTV
Misha and I stopped paying for cable nearly 20 years ago. Before streaming services took over, we decided to go with what we could find on the networks we could pick up with our TV antenna. We missed a lot of the shows people were talking about, but we were ok with that.
But when we were on vacation, it was on. We got as much ESPN and HGTV as we could get. Even though we’ve gradually added certain streaming services into our viewing habits, it’s still a Parker tradition to spend time each day of our vacation watching some of the channels we don’t get at home.
Usually that means a couple of hours of HGTV each day.
We love watching old homes get facelifts, we love judging the unemployed artist and stay at home mom who can somehow pay $750,000 for a house. We love to follow the personal lives of Chip and Joanna, Jonathan and Drew, and Erin and Josh.
But what if the show ended before the big reveal? What if we saw the old rundown house, the plans for fixing it up, demo day, the inevitable hidden issue that adds $3,000 to the cost of the project, the kitchen cabinets getting installed, but never get to see the finished product?
We love the before and after photos, Chip and Joanna’s giant picture banner that they move aside to reveal the new look of the home. If we didn’t get that satisfaction, the shows would lose their appeal.
I think it’s part of the human condition. We want to know that something broken can be restored. We want to feel that there is hope for something that seems to be beyond repair,
and I think it’s one reason Christianity makes sense.
We look around and see that the world is broken. Things are not as they should be. Christianity shows us the picture that God created things to operate a certain way, and though sin has defaced that picture, through Christ we can be restored to the glory for which we were intended. Like a broken down home under the artful and skilled hands of a contractor we become new again.
And the role of the Christian is to introduce people to the idea that the DIY projects they’ve been trying will never bring the kind of restoration Christ offers.
A restored hope.
A rest from the struggle.
A right relationship with our Creator.
The daily experience of receiving grace and forgiveness for sin.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
- II Corinthians 5:17-21
But when we were on vacation, it was on. We got as much ESPN and HGTV as we could get. Even though we’ve gradually added certain streaming services into our viewing habits, it’s still a Parker tradition to spend time each day of our vacation watching some of the channels we don’t get at home.
Usually that means a couple of hours of HGTV each day.
We love watching old homes get facelifts, we love judging the unemployed artist and stay at home mom who can somehow pay $750,000 for a house. We love to follow the personal lives of Chip and Joanna, Jonathan and Drew, and Erin and Josh.
But what if the show ended before the big reveal? What if we saw the old rundown house, the plans for fixing it up, demo day, the inevitable hidden issue that adds $3,000 to the cost of the project, the kitchen cabinets getting installed, but never get to see the finished product?
We love the before and after photos, Chip and Joanna’s giant picture banner that they move aside to reveal the new look of the home. If we didn’t get that satisfaction, the shows would lose their appeal.
I think it’s part of the human condition. We want to know that something broken can be restored. We want to feel that there is hope for something that seems to be beyond repair,
and I think it’s one reason Christianity makes sense.
We look around and see that the world is broken. Things are not as they should be. Christianity shows us the picture that God created things to operate a certain way, and though sin has defaced that picture, through Christ we can be restored to the glory for which we were intended. Like a broken down home under the artful and skilled hands of a contractor we become new again.
And the role of the Christian is to introduce people to the idea that the DIY projects they’ve been trying will never bring the kind of restoration Christ offers.
A restored hope.
A rest from the struggle.
A right relationship with our Creator.
The daily experience of receiving grace and forgiveness for sin.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
- II Corinthians 5:17-21
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