I freely confess to having messes in my life. Some messes I can hide, some are impossible to keep hidden and they are more visible than I want. Some are spiritual messes, and some are really truly messes that can be seen and that need to be cleaned up.
A good representation of my messy life could be my refrigerator! This is kind of an old story but with new additions that have insights on my messy life.
Once it—the refrigerator—was a perfectly new and pristine appliance. It looked like I wanted my life to be—clean in every corner and white without a spill anywhere. And then—that all changed. I daily added to the things that are often found in refrigerators. I took out perhaps one thing but then added 2 or 3 back into it. Anyone with a grade school knowledge of math knows that will not give you a balanced equation! Eventually it was overflowing, too crowded was the result. There were a few attempts to take care of the situation but with little effect. I complained! I had excuses! I blamed someone else for opening things and then never finishing what was open before opening something else. I appreciated food gifts but that added to the overcrowding, and I could never seem to get the problem under control.
From time to time, I made a resolve to solve this problem I had created. I would attack the problem—one or two items at a time. And convinced myself—Now it looks better and there is room again!! But neither were very accurate. I was embarrassed for others to see my messy refrigerator! I finally made some progress and had some room to be able to use. There! That was good. It is good enough! We can deal with the back corners later! I even convinced myself that it looked good! It's my mess, just the way I like it. Not! No one does. We secretly wish it was different. We don't know where to start.
This is the pattern for life. I can so easily make a mess of my life. I keep adding trouble upon trouble and never get around to dealing with the real problem. I surface clean but never really get into the hidden areas that embarrass me. Somehow, I think that maybe God won't notice them. They are hidden and I want them to stay that way. I do not want to deal with the hard stuff. If I take care of this problem and that other problem, maybe God will think that my good start is enough to impress Him with my intentions to clean up my life.
Not long ago, my own personal Master cleaner came to visit me. He had kind of warned me that he thought I needed help with my refrigerator, but I convinced myself that he wouldn't have time for it if I kept him busy with other things. And I did make it a little better—maybe it would be enough to make him forget about wanting to "help" me with my messy life/refrigerator! But No! Master cleaner had not forgotten, and he came with a plan. It was a plan that I did not want to have happen. I did not want someone to discover all the hidden things in my messy life/refrigerator! And I rebelled! I pouted! I just wanted my secrets to be my secrets! My hidden secret sins. Sins that I didn't want found out, discovered and exposed. I did not want to have him see my sins. My hidden sins, hidden away where only I could see them but only if I looked harder and deeper. I only wanted to see what was right in front, not what was in the back and out of sight! So I fixed the front, the visible and declared it good enough for now! It was enough to take care of our daily "in's and out's". But refrigerator use was still not easy. Putting things away was still difficult. I could almost do what I needed to do daily. But life was still difficult!
Again, I can see my efforts at the refrigerator being like my life. I so often want to have my life clean, and I make the attempt to begin to find the things I need to clean up and get rid of. I think I have done good when I have confessed and cleaned up a couple of items that I know should not be in my life. I can show God I am making a good attempt at improving. I can show Him I tried, and I think He will be impressed with my effort. But within my heart, I know it isn't good enough. God's eyes that are omniscient can see back behind that clean front to where it is not clean at all in my life. He is the real Master Cleaner! And I make my life harder when I rebel and pout and don't ask Him for help. I make a big mistake when I don't ask for His help. Help that He wants to give me. But I do not want to have Him discover what I have tried to hide and forget about!
Since I hadn't cleaned out each shelf and corner and seemingly years of neglect—I am ashamed to admit—I had been pushing things back out of sight or where they were easy to ignore. The word symbolism comes to mind. My fridge = my life! Do you have something that symbolizes your life like I do? If yes, then invite your Master Cleaner into your life! I didn't want to face what I already knew was trouble, mold, spoiled, and dangerous. But in the back, out of sight, I didn't have to daily deal with it.
Then crippling trouble and disease entered my life. Now it became too late to do what had been put off. Offers of help were given—I didn't want help! Help would see my failure and sin—the hidden sin that no one was supposed to know about me. And then—the Master cleaner came, and I said "No, nope, don't, I'll take care of it, I don't want your help", to him. None of those words made him stop. He just went on cleaning—looking deep, searching out my mysteries, my neglect, my dark and uglies. He was relentless. At times he asked if I could tell him about........ Often, not even I could remember! On and on he went, looking, sniffing, dumping, assuring me that I wasn't going miss what he was throwing out. And yet, I protested verbally and was silently fuming! But at the same time also fuming at myself for allowing such messy sinfulness into my life. My life that was now exposed!
Master cleaner assured me that there was no judgement, that there was only cleaning and refreshing and room to start afresh. The old was gone, disposed of, out of sight forever—left only for the worms and bugs to finish the destruction. He wasn't judging! I was the judge! Judging myself! But now I added new resolutions. I resolved to do better! To keep my messy fridge clean, with no mysteries. I resolved to deal with the things placed in it in a timely manner and to not push them back out of sight. I resolved to have a plan of organization. And Master cleaner was also the Master organizer and gave me a plan to get me started on my new path of resolution. Secretly I was relieved to have those sins gone, dumped out of my life forever. My messy refrigerator was messy no longer.
Then it was time for the Master cleaner to leave. He had other duties that called him away. Left behind were the empty containers! The clean-up job wasn't finished. I still could contribute to the cleaning. The empty containers needed cleaning; they had bits left in them that told of my sins. They had to be cleaned to be useful again. And so I set about the task of cleaning, scrubbing, bleaching to make them useful again.
Each of us has a Master Cleaner. He is different from my Master cleaner. For He is the Ultimate Cleaner. However, though He has a plan, He waits to be invited into your kitchen to clean your messy life. Like me, your messy life leaves us cold, chilled almost to death. But there is hope! He is waiting for an invitation, that you and I need help with cleaning up our messy lives. Let's face our problems with new resolves. Resolves to get rid of the dirt, the spoiled, the trouble, the smelly and spoiled, the dangerous. Your spoiled and dangerous probably looks different from mine. It still needs cleaned up and thrown out. If we wait and then additional crippling disease happens, it just might be too late for the clean-up time. It would be far better to tackle the clean-up of my and your messy life before that time of crippling happens and it becomes too late! I can promise you, you won’t miss those things that make your life messy. I have not missed the messy things from my refrigerator. They are gone forever, put out of mind, with barely a remembrance, just as our Master Cleaner has promised to remember the spoiled in our life No More. He does not come as the Master Judge but as the Master Cleaner and Organizer. I should not fear to invited Him in to do the cleaning. He only wants to forgive my messes. And to clean up the messes for me.
According to the Bible, God will not remember our sins:
Isaiah 43:25: "I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins"
Hebrews 8:12: "For I will be merciful and gracious toward their sins and I will remember their deeds of unrighteousness no more"
Micah 8:17: "He will cast our sins into the depths of the sea"
Psalm 103:12: "As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us"
Although God is omniscient and knows everything, he can choose not to remember something. In the Bible, God's "not remembering" of sins is not the same as forgetfulness. Instead, it means that God has blotted out sins with the blood of Jesus Christ. I am so thankful for those promises of remembering NO MORE!
Confession cleans my messy life!