Does anyone here have a messy room? Indeed, myself included. What tends to be your biggest problem? Is it the floor, the bed? The top of the desk or dresser? All of the above? When was the last time you cleaned your room?
Most of us have a bedroom, and let's admit, it gets a little messy over time. The room itself was probably built well, and it has everything we need in it (walls, roof, floor, bed, desk, dresser,etc.), but we mess it up just by living in it. If we're not careful, nasty things start growing in there, you've got old socks and broken toys under the bed with a pizza carton maybe, and it develops a kind of weird smell….well, then you know it's really time to clean.
When we clean, we get rid of the stuff we don’t need anymore or which is stinking up our space! We replace the mess with order, which is safer for everyone, and gives us room to really enjoy having a room, and maybe invite some friends over who won’t be afraid to join us.
Well, our churches can kind of be like our rooms. They do get messy. In the history of the Christian church, we actually didn’t clean house for about 1500 years. Then we cleaned once, and almost didn’t recognize ourselves anymore! It actually started a real argument….but all these years later, we're learning to be friends with each other again, all these different churches we have now.
Now, if you can believe it, we might actually have to clean more than once, maybe again and again and again, cause the church, much like our room, tends not to stay nice by itself. We’ll mess it up, again and again, and again.
However, we don't have to face this process alone, even when we dread it. We have God’s help, and we often can get help from others. And each time we do it, through God's grace, we have a new beginning; a fresh start. Thanks be to God!
No comments:
Post a Comment