I was looking around my house and feeling quite overwhelmed at the mess that met my view. Baskets of produce needing to be processed joined piles of papers that needed to be sorted and filed. Couch slipcovers were rumpled while blankets and discarded sweatshirts lay strewn about. And I hadn’t cleaned the bathrooms in a couple of days.
Sure, we’re a family of 6 trying to make 1300 square feet work with two rooms for living space functioning as six. But at that moment, I knew there had to be a better way. If you’ve been with me a while, you know I struggle with housekeeping. Not that I don’t care or know how to keep a home, but it just seems to be the thing that gets pushed aside as life’s demands ramp up.
I fall prey to the lie that it can be done later and forget that it’s in the small tasks, the things that really don’t take much time, done regularly, that help things stay in order.
If I’m honest, I have studied home and time management for many years. There have been books and video courses and subscriptions, and advice from other women who naturally excel at a clean and tidy home. And yet my brain just can’t seem to settle into a definite routine.
Housekeeping is the bane of my existence. It takes SO much more effort than I want to give it, and I often feel like that’s all I do. Instead of happening in the background and behind the scenes, it is always taking up space in my brain. This seems to be one of my “thorns in the flesh” that Paul talks about.
Shortly after that day, God began bringing me some perspective change. He reminded me that He is the God of order, not chaos. If I am supposed to be growing more like Jesus, then my life (and home) cannot be characterized by disorder and mess.
Ouch.
He began to show me that this was partly a spiritual battle. This was an area where I am weak, so it’s His strength that needs to shine. No matter how much I try, I will always fail if this is not an area where I am drawing on Him for strength. And maybe that has been the struggle all along. I have been trying to fix it myself with a new resource instead of going to the ultimate resource Himself.
In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul writes in verse 33 that “… God is not a God of confusion but of peace.”. A few verses down, in verse 40, he writes, “but all things should be done decently and in order.”
In this passage, Peter was addressing the New Testament believers about how their worship services were to be conducted, but the principle can be applied anywhere. He was really just applying the principles in place from the very beginning of the world to the church.
Way back in Genesis 1, we read about how God took nothing and made order. He created the chemistry and physics principles, weather patterns, geology, astronomy, and all of science, and made them work together harmoniously to create life and life systems on earth. The Bible tells us in the Psalms and passages in Job that God is over all and orchestrates everything from the ice and snow to the rain and lightning. He can supernaturally alter weather patterns or something in the physical world, but most of the time, it’s the orderly systems He put in place that create the world as we know it.
I recently heard a powerful analogy on a kids’ show similar to Adventures in Odyssey called Base Camp Adventures. One episode gave an analogy about a bookshelf. Suppose you have a bookshelf and put all your things on it in order of how you like the items- most loved is on top, next loved is on the next shelf down, and so on until the things that don’t matter are on the bottom. But let’s pretend the bookshelf is life, holding all the things in our lives. Where would you put God?
We know God is supposed to be first, so logically we would say he goes on the top shelf, right? Wrong. God should be the bookcase, holding all the parts of our life, from most loved to least liked. That concept stunned me for a bit when I first heard it, but it makes perfect sense.
God is the bookshelf that provides the structure and order to our lives.
And for me, I have to put home-keeping somewhere on my bookshelf. But if God is my bookshelf, then my home-keeping will remain within and under His control. Why my brain resists schedules and order feels beyond me, Lord-willing, with His help, I’ll be able to implement what I have learned in my 21 years of striving to be a better home-keeper. The Bible tells us that we can do all things through Christ, who strengthens us. I need to surrender this to Him daily.
We must be careful not to make our chaos an idol. We must be truly honest when we answer the question Jesus asked the lame man: “Do you want to be well?” Do we want a new identity, or are we comfortable with our identity as it is, as the person struggling? Putting God on one of the shelves means we aren’t living fully surrendered to Him. Making Him the bookshelf means giving up all excuses and reasons why things are the way they are to live in full surrender.
As I have experienced this perspective shift, He also reminded me that He leads and guides us when we surrender our lives or issues to Him. This is a call to daily lift the area of issue up to Him and ask for His help.
Maybe for you it isn’t home-keeping. It doesn’t matter what it is we strive for and where we constantly fail despite our best efforts. Chaos and disorder can happen in any area of our lives. But God is the God of order and can calm the chaos just like he calmed the sea for the disciples. Even they cried out for Jesus to save them.
Yes, in the midst of our chaos, we can cry out to the Lord to save us, and He will be the hero who restores order.
Even if it’s the house that seems hopeless!
