Bless This Mess
Recently, my daughter-in-law posted the passage below on her Facebook page and it really struck a chord with me. Now although I do not identify as a “Christian” I am a follower of Jesus Christ and his teachings and at times do that better than at other times. The reason I stopped identifying as a Christian is the Christian church stopped identifying me as one of theirs over 20 years ago. No use attempting to be part of a club that according to their rules you just don’t qualify for membership. Or as I say when asked why I don’t pastor or speak in churches anymore, ‘Because they will let me into their heaven, but not their pulpits’. Frankly, it's not an issue with me as I only stay where I am celebrated and leave when I am tolerated. That out of the way, here is what Tiffany posted, followed by my comments
‘God isn’t intimidated by our mess, and he certainly isn’t surprised by it. He’s not a judgy house guest who cringes at a peek inside the messy interior of our lives. He is the type of friend who rolls up his sleeves and grabs the trash bags. He isn’t willing to leave our pain and destruction undealt with. He insists on rebuilding the ruins of our lives where others have carelessly torn us down. But we have to be willing participants in our healing process.
Take comfort in this: there is nothing God’s careful hand cannot repair, if only we’d open the door and let him in.
Whether you’ve established the wrong foundation, or the foundation you did have got flooded and ruined, or the soil of your heart isn’t conducive to healthy growth—God can repair what has been broken, and he can heal what has been torn.
In him, you’re standing on fertile ground.
In him, your foundation is untouchable, unmatched, and unequivocally stronger than the wolves that try to tear it down.
I’m not sure who else needs to hear this, but I definitely need to hear this every day! Your mission is where your feet are. Where you are right now—it matters. It’s only insignificant if you believe it is. What you’re doing now, in the quiet, it’s making a profound impact in unseen ways. The ripple of your obedience today will burst forth into waves that splash into countless lives. Focus on taking one step at a time.’
My favourite part of this whole meditative piece is the opening statement that, ~God isn’t intimidated by our mess~ We mere mortals have been taught to detest mess of any kind, so we grow up hearing that your room is messy-clean it up! Colour inside the lines as otherwise it looks-messy! Or the house is a mess and company is coming over so everyone needs to pitch in and clean up this-mess! We love having everything neat and tidy and in order and therefore grow-up understanding that we will be judged by just how neat and tidy or messy we are. Or that when everything is neat and tidy we have more control-or do we?
But if you think about it, birth is messy, death is messy. Researchers point out that our ability to be creative is depleted the first time we tell a child that they must ‘ALWAYS’ colour inside the lines as otherwise it looks messy. So perhaps in our attempts to create clean lines we are killing creativity. If you walk through the woods during the Autumn the normally clearpath is now a mess with fallen dead leaves and yet you hear people talking about walking through the leaves and the sights and smells are somehow so refreshing. Apparently, there are times when the Almighty puts a stamp of approval on mess and him/herself colours outside the lines, so rather than crying out for angelic hosts to come in and fix or clean up ‘my mess’, perhaps our prayer out to be “BLESS THIS MESS!”
The late Great King Solomon wrote:
This is all that I have learnt: God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated ...(and might I add, ‘messy’). Ecclesiastes 7:2 GNBUK
Now I am in no way advocating for leaving every mess or on purpose creating a mess. There are times we need to deal with a mess. If our finances are in a mess it is time to look at cleaning that up. If our mind is messed up, I encourage regularly doing a check-up from the neck up and deal with our stinkin’ thinkin’! And I have discovered that at those times I can most certainly call on and expect Divine direction to deliver me or more likely assist me in the discipline of dealing with the mess I have created.
As I often say, ‘It’s just a thought’ and I would love to hear your perspective on this.
Ciao,
Paul
agperspectives23@gmail.com
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