Bob Tamasy: Lessons From A New Bathroom

It’s interesting what we can glean about eternal truth from everyday life circumstances. This came to mind recently while reading a newspaper columnist’s musings about building a new bathroom in his home. Frankly, I admire the guy – because even though I also spent part of my career as a newspaper editor, the only thing I can accomplish with my hands is type words on a keyboard.

This fellow explained about installing a subfloor, outlets and switches that actually worked, wiring, drywall and other elements required to make his bathroom functional and attractive. He ended his column with the observation, “I know what it took to get it to the shape it’s in now.”

Imagine him proudly showing the new room to visiting guests. They comment, “Wow! It looks great. Who built it?” and he replies, “You know, that’s the funny thing. No one built it. My wife and I always wanted a master bathroom, and then one day, voila, there it was! It just appeared.”

They might chuckle at first, but if they thought he was serious, they would either check him for a high fever, call 911, or slowly move toward the front door. Because we all know that something doesn’t come out of nothing. For every effect, there must be a cause.

My wife and I experienced the same thing when we had two bathrooms remodeled in our home. Unlike the columnist, I had nothing to do with the projects except moving a few items in and out. But we had a very skilled craftsman, a specialist in flooring and tile work, who did the remodeling for us. When friends visited, they would always ask, “Who redid your bathrooms?” They knew somebody had done it.

Yet there are many strident, stubborn proponents of the so-called Big Bang Theory, which asserts that one day (before there were days, or hours, or even minutes), an extraordinary event occurred for no reason, with no purpose, all on its own – bringing something out of absolutely nothing. No only that, but this “something” has turned out to be phenomenally orderly, generally functioning in very predictable ways that can be studied by various scientific disciplines.

But, they claim, there was no first cause, no intelligent design, no meaning or purpose behind any of it. It just was, and is, and supposedly, always will be.

I get it: If you reject God, if you refuse to believe or accept the idea of a divine Creator, you do have to come up with some alternative explanation. So the “Big Bang” seems to do the job, even though its original premise flies directly against everything we know and have observed, even though the eyes of science. 

Our magnificent world, not to mention the entire universe, operates in wonderful harmony and amazing order. Even though the natural course of things – according to various theories and laws of physics – if left unmanaged, is to move toward disorder. (I could offer my desk as proof; I straighten it up, and seemingly within moments, it’s already turning back into a mess.)

Whenever we walk into a restaurant and admire the décor, or sit in our car and it predictably starts when the key turns in the ignition, we know this didn’t happen by accident. There was a “creator” and a “builder,” armed with plans for how things should look and operate. We don’t need to be convinced of this.

So with leaves turning colors and then falling with the advent of autumn, and temperatures dropping as winter approaches, these serve as reminders that the orderly creation we observe is the result of the exquisite mind of the Creator God, who informs us, “’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8).

If there was a Big Bang, and perhaps there was, it’s the one described in Genesis 1, when God spoke everything into being: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light…. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good…” (Genesis 1:3-31).

If you need proof, you don’t need to look any farther than someone’s refurbished bathroom.

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