Renovations

The recent sermon series - Renovations has been very good for me on a personal level.  It has caused me to reflect a bit on my own life and consider what areas of my mind, heart or will have yet to be attended to.  I especially appreciated the rooms metaphor as it helped me understand how we need to invite Christ into all rooms in our lives, even the ones we tend to neglect.  This became strikingly true for me this month as I am switching rooms with my roommate.  In moving a few feet I realized that I have a LOT of organizing to do.  Right now, my room is made up of four different piles.  The paperwork pile, where a mountain of old letters, documents and even a random frisbee has made it way onto my desk.  Then there’s the clothes pile where I’ve effectively been able to hide away in my closet hoping that it will just go away by itself.  Next is the school pile where all my books, school work and other items that I accumulated in the past two years are scattered on my floor.  Finally, is the misc pile that’s made up of everything else that I cannot seem to classify into the other piles.  Needless to say, the room is a mess!

This made me realize a couple of things about myself.  One, I hate hate hate to organize!  I can live with a mess for quite a long time before I feel the need to begin the process of tidying.  Two, the mess won’t go away by itself (as I keep hoping it will) if I simply ignore it.  Three, when I think about the work that it entails, I don’t want to even get started!  Four, I can’t really invite anyone to come visit me in my room until it is presentable.  Finally, I’m not going to get the most use of my room if I don’t effectively clean it up.  I’m the same way when it comes to my spiritual life.  I tend to focus on externals and not my heart condition believing that since no one can see it, there’s no need to attend to it.  In the end however, if I don’t deal with what’s going on inside then the outside is merely a facade and simply a set of behaviors without much power.

As I begin the process of fixing up my room, I am praying that I will also begin to let God attend to the different areas of my life whether it be my heart, my mind or my will.