Clean Up

It’s springtime and things have been crazy around our home. Between finishing our homeschooling for the year, little league and spring fever, not much indoors has been accomplished. Yep, the house is a mess – just ask my husband. So yesterday I told my kids they needed to clean their disaster areas, err…bedrooms…before they could play.

Meanwhile, I worked on Mount Laundry.

Some time later my children informed me their rooms were complete. I checked on them and stood amazed. Shiny and clean, with minimal complaints while doing them – what great kids. Giving my okay, they ran past me to play outside and I returned to the laundry.

Well, I finally scaled my mountain and headed to put the items away. Normally my children need to put their own clothes away, but they’d been so good about cleaning their rooms that I decided to do it for them. The first closet I opened nearly buried me alive. Upon closer inspection, I found under their beds held whatever the closets could not. They hadn’t cleaned their rooms, they’d just hidden their messes.

After I brought them back inside and set them to cleaning – again – God hit me with this little thought. Don’t we sometimes do the same thing? God asks us to clean something out of our lives and we shove it into the corner, claiming we’ve dealt with it and hoping He no longer sees it. On the outside, our lives look all neat and tidy, but on the inside they are a raging mess. Then someone walks by and unsuspectingly opens our closet door and gets dumped on.

Here’s the thing, we may successfully hide our stuff from the people around us - though they often fall victim to our avalanches - but do we really think we’ve hidden anything from God? His Word clearly states that “you justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows you hearts.” (Luke 16:15) You’re not hiding a thing from Him. And it’s not doing you, or those around you, any good to keep your mess.

So go clean your room. I know it’s not always fun and that you’d rather keep playing, but it needs to be done. You can’t find anything in the chaos, and you don’t have room for anything new because you’re overrun by the old. People around you are wondering where that ‘drive-by’ dumping came from and you’re left feeling out of control. Listen to your Father’s voice calling you back inside, telling you it’s time to clean it all out, because the only thing you should be hiding in your heart is His Word. So come on, grab your Bible, get on your knees, and start cleaning. Things will look a lot better once you’re done.