My Life Is A Mess

Whenever I tidy something or have a 'spring clean', everything always looks worse, much worse, when I am half-way through.  And when it looks like that - with so many piles of stuff everywhere that you wonder where it was all hiding - I always question why I started.

 

It's at times like these when I have to fight the strong temptation to just walk away.  Or to shove it all into a box or under the bed, out of sight.

 

It seems to be, as Jane Austen would say, "a truth universally acknowledged" that things have to get worse before they get better when it comes to tidying and cleaning.  I wonder if there is some sort of science behind it all?

 

And it seems that when we are sorting things out in our hearts and in our lives, things often get messy before they get better as well.  And we have to fight the same temptation to run away and to hide our issues under the bed again.

 

Sometimes in order to sort things out and to be put back together, we need to first be taken from together.  We need to be broken in order to be properly mended.  And that is messy.

 

But God is in the mess with us.  And He will help to rebuild us.

 

      "For God is out to help Zion,

      Rebuilding the wrecked towns of Judah."

 

       [Psalm 69:35 MSG]

 

       And,

 

       "You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
       rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
       You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
       restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
       make the community livable again.

 

      [Isaiah 58:12 MSG]

 

I heard this the other day,

"Have the courage to be imperfect."

I have spent most of my life chasing perfection.  The illusive idea that if I tried just a little bit harder, if I was just a little bit better, my life might be easier/better/more fulfilling.

 

I have run from imperfection and mess.  But I am beginning to realise that it is in embracing and wrestling with the mess that we find ourselves.  And in doing so, we find contentment and fulfilment.

 

We are all works in progress.  We are all half-way through the 'sorting out' process.  We are not finished products.  We are being refined and reshaped and recast day after day after day.

 

I'm not sure I have the courage to be imperfect.  But I want to try.

 

I want to be comfortable living in the mess, because that's where the life is.

 

 

 

 

Preview

I've been thinking about trailers this evening.  Not the sort that you attach to your car, but the sort which advertise a film or a TV programme.

 

They give us a quick and intriguing insight into what's coming up next, or try to persuade us to go and watch a film.

 

Sometimes I wish I had a trailer for my life: I'd love to know how the storyline pans out and what's going to happen.  Or even a short weekly trailer: a quick snippet of what to expect in the next week.  The highlights and the low points, the things to look out for and the things that will be stressful.  I wouldn't have to worry about things, I could be prepared for everything.  Nothing would catch me out.

 

But my life wouldn't be very exciting - I wouldn't really be living.  It'd be like simply reading through a script which I hadn't written, but couldn't control.  It would be boring, at best, and deeply dissatisfying at worst.

 

I don't know how my life will unfold and what will happen, but I do know and trust that God has got good plans for me.

 

This is one of my favourite verses in the whole Bible and it reminds me to trust in God when I feel that I don't really have a clue what is happening in my life:

 

         "The Lord will guide you always;
         he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
         and will strengthen your frame.
         You will be like a well-watered garden,
         like a spring whose waters never fail."

 

[Isaiah 58:11 NIV]

 

I want to be guided by God.  I want a life that is satisfied, even in difficult circumstances. I want a strong frame.  I want to be 'well-watered'; I want to be a spring that never runs dry.

 

Like a trailer for a film or the next episode of a TV programme, this verse doesn't give away the whole plot.  It doesn't give us all of the details, but it gives enough detail to make me want to read on.

 

And it's not just a preview for my life.  It's a preview for all of us.  If we want it.

 

 

 

 

Rubble and Rebuilding

Walking home this afternoon, I spotted a derelict building that I have never noticed before.  The windows were blocked up and ivy was crawling up the walls.  As I glanced to the left, I saw a pile of rubble towering over the nearby car park.

A picture of despair and hopelessness.

Or is it?

My first reaction was to think: What a shame.  A beautiful old building has gone to waste and a pile of rubble has been left behind where another building once stood.

However, whilst these two things certainly wouldn't make it into a promotional ad for the town, God showed me something beautiful about them.  They are not an end in themselves.  They are a sign of hope and potential, a signal of something new on the way.

Sometimes we need to be broken in order to be rebuilt.

In their book, 'Deep Church', Frog and Amy Orr-Ewing outline four key processes for the rebuilding of the church, based on Haggai 1.  I think that the principles are just as relevant to us as we seek to rebuild ourselves:

Some rubbish needed to be cleared - reformation.  Some stones could be retained as good material - retrieval.  But new wood was needed from the mountains - renewal.  And a promise of acceptance, salvation and glory remained - revival.

We can't rebuild without sometimes first unbuilding and getting rid of what has gone before.  Sometimes we need to remove false ideas and ideals; we need to demolish and destroy lies and strongholds which have choked us.  We need to get rid of what was, to make way for what will be.

But that doesn't mean that we need to get rid of everything in order to rebuild.  Sometimes we can use the rubble and fashion it into something new.  This is one of my favourite verses in the whole Bible: 

"You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again."

[Isaiah 58:12 MSG]

 I came across this profound statement the other day (on this blog - http://brokencameras.com/tag/pain/) and I have been thinking about it ever since:

"Ruin is the starting point of transformation."

I know that in my own life, it has been in moments of complete brokenness, when everything I have lovingly built up has been razed to the ground and the foundations themselves are shaking, that I have found new life.

And in this broken state, Jesus promises to be close to us and to help to rebuild us:

"He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners."

[Isaiah 61:1 NIV]

Sometimes we need to be broken in order to be rebuilt.