Confession time. I was a very messy kid. It might have been due to resentment of my
mom’s continual cleaning, but for whatever reason, it didn’t bother me to live
in a pigsty. Now, just so you understand,
all my friends who said, “Don’t mind the mess” when you went in their bedrooms-
and quite frankly ‘a mess’ that I could never see, didn’t really understand
what messy was until they saw my bedroom!
They stood in the doorway with disbelieving eyes and then asked, “How do
you get to bed?”
Well, there was about ten feet to my bed
from the light switch. I would turn it
off and jump from one small (about 4” sq.) clear spot on the floor to another,
three in all, and then carefully dive into bed. Obviously,
I was a hopscotch pro. In case you
wonder I’m not too messy now but it took years of the Lord working in my life.
Some people don’t have messy bedrooms,
but they have messy lives in some way.
It could be a messy physical life (poor health, pain, diet issues), social
life (jobs, relationships, finances), mental life (disorders, negativity,
stinky thinking), emotional life (continual relationship crises, instability),
and spiritual life (on and off with God, reading and not reading Word, praying
and not). In actuality, we all have mess
somewhere, but some messes (like my bedroom was) are worse than others.
"Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or
sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be
lived in the midst of that mess." —Charles Colson in his book, Loving
God.
In the midst
of our messy lives are we living what we believe? Understand, I am NOT asking- are we healthy,
spiritually strong, financially doing well, successful, stable, positive,
relating well because that’s the way we believe we should be living as
Christians, but rather, are we trusting God completely
in the midst of our lives despite the fact things aren’t turning out the way we
expected? For me, it keeps coming
back to trust.
Trust in Jehovah with all your heart, and lean not to
your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct
your paths. Pr. 3:5,6
The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my
heart trusts, and I am helped… Ps. 28:7 ESV
(those who
revere God) He shall not be afraid of bad news; his heart is fixed, trusting in Jehovah. Ps. 112:7
Trust in Him at all times; you people, pour out your
heart before Him; God is a hiding-place
for us. Selah. Ps. 62:8
Most of my
Christian life I’ve been trying to live within my own understanding seeing only
with natural eyes- I’ve missed a lot that way.
But as I increase in understanding of whom God is and trust in Him more,
I covet the strength He gives me to survive the mess, the shield with which He covers
me from the storms, and overall how He helps in the midst of the messiness of
life. Because of this, I no longer have
to be afraid of bad news
...for He is my hiding place.