Proverbs 14:4
Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.
Life properly lived is going to be messy. Getting anything important done will only happen if you are willing to put up with a lot of grief, and work through difficulties, conflicts, and setbacks.
Of all the things that absorb our time, there is nothing as important as our family relationships. If you can hermetically seal yourself off from family relationships, you might find yourself sinning less because there would be no one to offend. There would be no dishonor of parents and no honor of parents, no unloving and unkind words spoken, and no sibling rivalry. Oh, what a wonderful world this would be! When parents bring their children home and begin to work on those relationships, they always find themselves sinning more. Professional teachers will tell you that they seldom yell at the students in the classroom; but if they try to tutor their own children at home, they find themselves quickly raising their decibels and launching into a tirade over some algebra problem! So the best way to keep the barn clean, is to keep the cows clean out of it. Should parents allow their children into the house and into their lives, they’ll begin to notice messy piles lying around. Like water poured into a dirty glass, relationships will dislodge the crud caked on the bottom of our hearts, bringing it all to the surface. Where people isolate themselves from relationships and give no opportunity for love, joy, peace, and longsuffering to operate, there will be very little sanctifying work of the Spirit accomplished.
To better illustrate this, consider this tale of two women. The first woman was very neatly put together. She had inherited three generations of faith. Her great grandmother, her grandmother, and her mother were Christians. She had a very neat life. She even covered the furniture in the living room with plastic. And she hardly ever sinned. Her children were neatly tucked away in boarding schools and she never yelled at them, not even once. The pastor never had to deal with her problems. In fact, once or twice he commended her from the pulpit.
Then there was the other woman— she didn’t have a godly mother or grandmother. Her father was an alcoholic, and to tell the truth, she was not so neatly put together herself. One day, she brought her children home from school and she pursued real relationships with them, and it was messy. She yelled at her children way too much. She was afraid her yelling would permanently damage them. She would ask forgiveness of the children at times, she thought maybe they were a little too close to observe her ways.
Her house was often disorganized—but the stacks were neat, and she opened the home for hospitality anyway. She had never done it before, but her husband thought it would be a good idea. Loving strangers? It was hard enough to love her own children!
The children gave her their hearts and they did observe her ways. They observed her yelling and then her tears of repentance. Yes, they observed her misapprehensions that they might pick up her sinful habits. They observed her struggles to overcome her anger, like the time she ran into the bedroom because she was afraid she might say something ugly. They saw all of the big mess.
The pastor was not very happy with this woman and her family. They seemed to require more prayer and counseling than anyone else in the church. “VDPs,” he called them. “Very Demanding People.”
On Sundays, she would bring the big mess to church with her… and fall on her face and say, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” This is the woman who went home justified (Luke 8:13,14)!
The moral of the story is simple. God is good. He does really well with big messes, but He doesn’t do as much with those who are so neatly put together. What really matters in your life are the risks you take for God, the sacrifices, the heart molding, and the willingness to uncover the mess and remove the layers of hypocrisy and white-coated plaster. If you try risking your furniture, your relationships, and your otherwise neat life for Jesus, and bring the whole mess to the cross, you will find great blessing indeed.
1. What kind of life do you live before God? Do you attempt to cover up the mess of who you really are, or are you willing to enter into relationships and deal with the issues that come up? How much has God used your relationships to sanctify you?
2. What are the drawbacks of being too much of a perfectionist in your physical labors and in your spiritual life?