Embracing the Mess

It’s become our tradition that New Year’s Day is reserved for taking the Christmas tree down, putting away the decorations, and getting ourselves back in order for the new year. This year, as my husband dragged the tree out, I started the clean-up process, but what’s supposed to be a simple task always turns into a bigger project around here.

As I started moving furniture, I decided I better just go all in with a deep clean. The cushions started coming off the couch and loveseat. I stared in disgust. We tell our kids they’re not supposed to eat in the living room…you can see how that’s going… wrappers shoved in crevices, dirty socks the dog had stuffed in a corner, crumbs of all variation and size, miscellaneous tidbits. Then I moved it, to find the amassing piles of dust bunnies, dirt, dog hair and cat fur hiding underneath.

I thought to myself, “Grandma would be appalled!” We bought my grandparents’ house a few years ago. I can’t remember a time I sat in their living room. It was the “fancy” room, immaculately staged and cleaned to perfection. The furniture was covered, and it was reserved for special guests, which obviously didn’t include children! She was definitely in the generation that believed “cleanliness is next to godliness.”

I gazed up to our dog lounging in the bay window, as if it was his personal throne, snout marks covering the window behind him, and smiled to myself. I thought..."maybe she missed it," and I think so do we, when we try to put life in a box, wrap it up, and place a sparkly bow on top.

As I cleaned that first day of the year, I kept hearing, “Embrace the mess.” I’m a perfectionist to the core. I have high standards and expectations that encompass every facet of my life. I like things in a box and wrapped in a bow! Messiness and disorder are NOT part of my repertoire, but I’m starting to see that’s not how God works.

Last Easter, we were watching Sight and Sounds’ Jesus. There was this one line that struck me so much I went back weeks later to find it and write it down. It was after Jesus healed a blind man (John 9). He had spit into mud and put it on the man’s eyes. Nathaniel says, "Teacher, why did you put mud on his eyes?" Jesus turns to him and says, “Because Nathaniel, sometimes things have to get messier before they can be truly clean.”

I haven’t been able to escape that. It’s made me think about Jesus’ entire ministry. The woman with the issue of blood, the mute, lame, and blind. Lazarus, dead three days. It was anything but pretty. His most amazing miracles involved flawed people in messy situations.

I hear so often, “What kind of God would allow …fill in the blank.” We live in a fallen world, full of sin, and sin equals death. But I do believe he allows messy in our lives (look at Job), because it's in the messiness he has the makings to create his most beautiful masterpieces!

A few years ago, I came across this.

https://pin.it/49UlYB4QZ 

The “gold” is God! Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! This is what he desires to do with our lives, our broken places. He wants to fill them with his light and beauty.

In a world that hides behind filters and false realities, I think he calls us to lift the veil. He says, it’s ok not to be perfect! It’s ok to be in a mess, or A mess! That’s why he came!

It’s called surrender, and as someone who struggles with control, I know how hard this can be. I daily have to spiritually and mentally take myself off the throne of my heart and put Jesus back up there. Remind myself who I’ve given authority over my life, my family, my fears, my anxieties, the things I have no control over.

It’s in Psalm 46 where it says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” But we have to read the whole chapter. It says he’s our refuge, our strength, a fortress. That we’re not to fear even if the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the sea, because he will be exalted among the nations and in all the earth.

I think too often we forget who God is. We think our ways are better. We can’t see anything happening in the physical. Our circumstances aren’t changing. We start to think he’s not doing anything, so we pick it back up and try to do life in our own strength.  

I’m here to tell you from experience, that’s a hard road. You don’t have to do it on your own. Just because you can’t see what he’s doing doesn’t mean he isn’t working. What if the promised land is right around the corner! Don’t give up! He’s with you, and he’s working on your behalf. 2 Corinthians 4:18

Susie Larson says it best in her book, Closer Than Your Next Breath. “Weeks prior, during a particularly intense time of prayer, I had cried out to the Lord, “Show me what I’m missing. Lord! I feel like I’m army-crawling for inches. What am I not seeing?” He whispered back with great clarify, You may be only gaining inches in the natural, but you’re gaining miles in the spiritual realm.”

This afternoon I looked out my window to this image.

One of our chickens is nursing a sore foot. I thought it interesting how this imitates how the enemy likes to work in our lives. When one of us is hurt or wounded he tries to isolate us away from the “flock”. It’s here, we become increasingly susceptible to the attack of predators.

Friend, if you’re in the middle of a storm and you've become isolated, I encourage you to surround yourself with one or two people you can trust. People who will stand by you, speak truth into your life, pray for you, lead you back to the word, and encourage you.

Satan is the prince of darkness. A liar. He wants to keep you isolated so you can’t see and hear the light and truth.

Don't be fooled or deceived. God hasn't forsaken you. He's in the midst of your "messiness", and he's waiting for you to lift up your head, to where your help comes from! Psalm 121.

I’m not sure what 2024 has in store for us, but I do know that whatever it is, God will be by our side. And whatever mess we may find ourselves in, it will be ok, because... He’s our Abba- Father, El Shaddai- God Almighty, Immanuel- God with Us, Jehovah Jireh- Our Provider, Yahweh-Rapha- The Lord Our Healer, Yahweh-Shalom- The Lord Our Peace, and he’s the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and He’s all we need!

The Treasury of Snow | Fast 2024 | Jentezen Franklin

Big Daddy Weave - All Things New (Official Lyric Video)

Deuteronomy 8:2-3 “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” …vs 16 He gave manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you.”

2 Corinthians 4:7-12 “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”