It was a Saturday night and my whole family and I were cleaning up before bedtime. My kid’s responsibility was to clean their rooms. It usually takes about ten minutes for my six-year-old son to clean his room. I was shocked when after only a few minutes he was already done cleaning. He ran up to me bragging about how quickly he had cleaned his room. As you could imagine I was a little skeptical, so I took a quick look. After looking around, I was satisfied with the cleanliness. I told him great job and with a smile, he trotted away. It didn’t quite sit right though, he had finished so quickly. I couldn’t figure it out, but decided to let it go. Later that night my husband came to me laughing. He had figured out how my son got his room cleaned up so fast. We walked into my son’s room so my husband could show me what he had discovered. Initially I saw nothing, it was clean on the surface, but as I dug deeper, I found the mess. He had shoved everything under his bed and behind his dresser.
Isn’t that human nature? To hide our “mess”. We want to pretend everything is okay. We want to put up a front. We might be struggling, or hurting deep down, but we want to hide it. The last thing we want to do is deal with the mess. Shoving it “under the bed” seems like the easiest option. We all want to hide the messiness of our lives, but hiding behind a facade will only cripple you. When you don’t deal with the problem, it only gets worse. It’s like my sons room. If you don’t clean up the mess it continues to build up. As much as you try to hide it, it will eventually surface. The mess will always show up some way and somehow.
As a child, I remember feeling like a mess quite often. I was the strong willed child, meaning I was not compliant. I had a temper and definitely lacked patience. As a child, I felt loved and accepted when I behaved, so I learned to modify my behavior. As time went on I got good at behaving, but deep down I was still a mess. I always felt something inside of me was broken. I hated that feeling, so I hid my mess. When undesirable behaviors would creep up, I was caught off guard. Why couldn’t I control myself? Why couldn’t I behave the way I wanted to behave? I didn’t realize it at the time, but I wasn’t dealing with the real issue. I was trying to clean up the surface, but the real problem was in my heart. I was trying so hard to modify behaviors and come across as perfect that I was missing the point. It wasn’t the exterior that needed fixing, it was the interior.
As an adult, I started to study the bible. I started learning and understanding what Christianity was all about. It was about saving people who were a mess. It was about changing people’s hearts, not about changing their behavior. You can only modify behavior for so long, it’s at the heart where we are all a mess. I remember the day I found out through scripture that we are all born sinners. In our own strength, we can never break free from sin. Initially I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, it was so far from my normal thinking. I spent my entire life trying to change my behavior and find perfection. This new truth seemed contrary to what I had always believed. Why was I trying so hard and chasing after something I could not achieve. I soon concluded that none of my work was doing anything besides putting a band-aid over a much deeper issue. The issue was my heart. I needed my heart to change before I could expect my behavior to change.
If we stripped away all of the outer layers and revealed the inner part within us, our heart and soul, we would find we aren’t all that different. We all have a “mess” that needs to be cleaned up, not shoved under the bed. You can have victory over your sin. Jesus died on the cross to save our souls. He died to clean up our mess because we aren’t capable of doing it in our own strength. The cross breaks us free from the chains that keep us captive. We no longer have to live a life with no hope. We can live a life of freedom. Don’t try and clean up your own mess and don’t try and hide it. There is freedom when you go to God with your struggles, problems, and sin. There is freedom in admitting we are broken and need help. We can live with hope because Jesus is our strength. He will fight the battle in our hearts. He will help us through our struggles and if we ask, He will clean up the messiness in our heart
Proverbs 28:13
It will not go well for the man who hides his sins, but he who tells his sins and turns from them will be given loving-pity.
Isaiah 30:18
So the Lord must wait for you to come to him.
So he can show you his love and compassion.
For the Lord is a faithful God.
Blessed are those who wait for his help.