Out of the Closet

I don’t know what I was thinking. I knew I should have never started.  But there I was, in the middle of my floor, surrounded by a warzone of books, papers, and assorted “junk.”  Yes, it was a full-on takeover ploy.  You see on Sunday, for whatever unearthly reason, I’d decided it was time to do my [sometimes] annual closet cleaning.  Now here it was, Friday, and I was still not done while getting buried seemingly deeper by the minute.

You see a funny thing happens when I clean out my closet.  All of a sudden, stuff I never knew I had somehow appears, and then it multiplies right before my very eyes.  Seriously. It’s like a miracle! I swear I never had that much stuff…  But somehow, there it is.  And what’s worse is, every box, binder, and folder I pull out represents countless additional layers within crying out for sorting, organizing, and dealing with.

So just throw it all out, right?  But you know as well as I that can’t just happen. For in the midst of all the “junk” is treasure!  Books I’ve been wanting to read, forms I need to keep, mementoes and memories of things I want to remember.  I feel like a miner digging tiringly through piles of dirt and rock saying, “I know there’s gold in them there hills somewhere!”

Yet in the moment, I wonder why even started this journey.  Everything was so much neater and tidier when it was all stuffed back in the closet. I didn’t have to look at my mess.  I didn’t have to think about it even – with the exception of when I wanted something buried within or felt that tinge of guilt over hanging on to all this stuff I can’t find nor use due its disarray.  But it was still easier that way.  At least on the outside, my room looked clean and organized.

And how often do I find myself treating my life like my closet?  I know there are messes inside to be cleaned out.  I know it needs attention.  But I’m loath to embark on the task.  It’s easier to leave things be.  Easier to keep it buried.  A whole lot easier.  And it looks a whole lot better on the outside.  Yet in the process, I miss out on things.  I miss out on the treasures buried within.  I cease to fully utilize what God’s given me as a person.  And I find myself living a stunted life as a result.

But what is the alternative?  While my closet may be [almost] within my ability to clean out and tame, my heart is not near as manageable.  In fact, on my own, I cannot fix it.  I will simply have a bigger mess than what I started with.  Job 14:4 says, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!”  No, I think one of the biggest myths in some popular psychology is that we can find the answers within ourselves.  What’s within me?  More mess that becomes even further tangled as I try to unwind its layers of twisted web.

But thankfully, I also believe we serve a God who can retrieve pure gold out of the most colossal mess.  He’s the only one who can sort out my life’s closet.  He wants to lovingly, patiently, though sometimes painfully, peel back the layers, remove the chaff, and dismantle the strongholds, the dysfunction, the pain, the baggage and the “junk” to allow the treasure He’s creating within to finally emerge – that “the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7).

So will I open up the closet?  Or settle for a clean-looking shell?  Will I embark on the journey?  Or be continually trapped by the twisted, tangled, mess beneath?  Will I choose to pridefully protect?  Or will I choose to humble myself before the Refiner and go for the true gold?  The choice is mine.