Cleaning House (05/30/2024)

This weekend, my mother will be coming to visit. My sister, niece, and two great nieces are bringing her from Sioux City, Iowa. I will have four guests for several days. And so, you won’t be surprised, I’m sure to learn that this week is all about cleaning house. My mother has never been to my home. I want everything perfect even though I know that “perfect” is hard to get this side of the sod.

As I go about making everything perfect, I find myself asking myself why I have kept things I should have thrown away, why I didn’t put things away when I was done with them, and how did I not notice the cobwebs in that corner before now. I’m realizing that as observant as I thought I was, I’m very good at not noticing the things that I don’t want to deal with at the time. I think they call it “selective vision.”

I realize as I go along, admitting my faults, that they aren’t limited to my housekeeping skills. I have to admit that my life has a series of incidents of “selective vision.” While I am prone to pull a Scarlet O’Hara during this busy period, saying to myself, “I’ll think about that tomorrow,” I realize that the LORD showed it to me today, so today is when I need to address it. So, as I go about tidying up and preparing for my physical guests, I will also be spending some time tidying up my life and preparing for my spiritual guest, making room for Christ in my life, my mind, and my heart.

It is so easy to postpone what I need to do. I must admit, if I am totally honest, that the one craft I have truly perfected is procrastination. This morning as I sat in prayer, trying to plan out what more needs to be done in preparations, in making my space hospitable for my expected guests, the LORD asked me to look at myself and I had to consider how hospitable I am to the indwelling of the LORD. I proclaim that I want to remain in the LORD as the LORD remains in me (John 15), but how hospitable have I been?

I can think of so many superfluous things that take up space in my mind and heart, key among them is probably what others think of me. This morning, I pondered if that was something I need to hang on to or is it time to shed that line of thinking. I claim to be “on the way,” but am I making any progress or do the angels need to set up stakes so the LORD can see if I’ve moved any closer. This morning’s talk with myself under the direction of my LORD didn’t go that well if we measured it by the number of accolades I claimed. But, as I sit here writing to you, I realized it did go well. I realized just how far the LORD has brought me with gratitude, but with sorrow I realize how many times I’ve procrastinated on totally surrendering to the LORD and His desire for me. I needed to acknowledge both. The first gives me hope; the second gives me purpose.

As we journey through this life under the grace of the Holy Spirit, we are called to be open to the LORD’s power and presence. The LORD writes straight with crooked lines. The LORD can take the moments of our lives and the situations of our days to inform our hearts and minds, to tenderize us so that we are willing to open ourselves to the conforming graces of the Spirit, and to transform us through the perpetual love of our LORD.

And sometimes what we learn through life and prayer yoked together is that we’ve work to do.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.