A Big Beautiful Mess
When I started cleaning my daughters room this past weekend, I knew it would be an all day event. Maybe that’s why I had put it off for so long.
This wasn’t just any regular cleaning either. There were things that were broken, old things she had outgrown, clothes hanging up that were now out of season, and just clutter E V E R Y W H E R E! Her room needed to be cleaned, reorganized and decluttered.
We started cleaning her room that morning.
(I hope you used your Spongebob Squarepants Narrator voice…if not try it again) 😂
…I was still cleaning! I left out of the room to get something, and when I came back in, I looked around and shouted,
“OMG, this room looks a hot mess! I’ve been cleaning this room for four hours now, and it looks way worse than when I started!”
Then, this message hit me so hard. Although it didn’t “appear” as though we were getting anywhere in the room, we really had made a lot of progress. Although it looked chaotic, it was more like “organized chaos.”
I had different piles scattered across the floor and bed, but every pile had intention. I had a pile of stuff to donate, a pile of stuff to sell, and things to move, and reorganize from one section of the room to the other etc.
To an outsider looking in (and apparently me too for a second), it just looked like one giant mess. Since I was the one cleaning, I had an intentional reason for everything that I was doing, even if no one else could see.
In those moments that I was processing what I was seeing, I realized that God was trying to show me something. I then tried to explain to my 11-year-old, how her room could be compared to how God works in our lives.
I shared with her that sometimes in our lives, it looks like God isn’t working. Our lives can sometimes look like one giant mess, while God is “cleaning up” our lives, and making it better. Then these words came to me…
“A Big Beautiful Mess ”
We all have those times where nothing seems to be going right in our lives. Some days it feels like we’re falling apart, and everything is just a mess. We question God, and wonder if He’s even doing anything to fix our situation.
That “mess” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, we just have to change our perspective of how we see it. In the same way that there can be Beauty in Our Isolation, there can also be beauty in the “mess.”
After my daughters room was finally clean, it was like a brand new room. Not only did it look different, but it felt different too. Now it feels way more spacious! So much so, that my daughter said now we need to find new stuff to put into her room. (I gave her the famous motherly answer… “Ummm we’ll see.” 😉
She was so used to all the clutter, that when her room was clean and organized, it felt kind of empty to her.
God wants to “clean up” our lives, but sometimes it looks messier, before it looks better.
He wants to fix what is broken. (If you’re anything like me you’re a…
B I G P R O J E C T 😇
God wants to “empty” us of everything that is not good for us, but he doesn’t want to leave us empty.
In the same way my daughter had the desire to fill her room up with more things, God wants us to desire more of Him. He wants to fill us back up. We just need to make more space for him, by allowing Him to move freely in our lives.
You may be looking at your life right now, and all you can see is the mess, and the clutter. But when God looks at your “mess”, He sees something absolutely beautiful. He knows what the outcome will be. The “mess” produces character that we need for where God is taking us.
God knows that what looks like “mess” now, will soon look like breakthrough, blessings, healing, increase, restoration, and joy.
“Don’t look at your “mess”, and think it’s an indication of the absence of God. He’s just making room for ALL the good He wants to give you. He wants to do great things in, and through you. ”
Continue to allow God to work in your life, so that the “beauty” in your big mess, can be revealed.
Today’s Prayer:
Father God, thank you for working in my life. I close the door to fear, doubt, anxiety, and unbelief. I know that you are working in my life, even when I can’t see it. Thank you for making me more like you. Continue to produce the type of character within me that I need to do all the things that you have called me to do. Help me to see things from your perspective. Help me to see the beauty in my situation. In Jesus name. Amen.
Today’s Reading: James 1:2-3; Ephesians 3:17-19
James 1:2-3 (NLT): “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”
Ephesians 3:17-19 (NKJV): “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”