Getting Cleaned Up

K came to me the other day, full of ideas on things she wanted to do. "Mom, we could take the youth to the ice rink! I could get a job! I want to volunteer at the soup kitchen! We could mulch the beds in the yard!" Okay, truthfully, I just dreamed the last one. We talked about how the promise of Spring seems so bright, fresh, full of promise. It's like a new start, a clean beginning, and isn't it neat that God created that for us every year? It's seasonal, but it's always there.

It's true that spring gets me excited. I love the idea of green lawns, fresh flowers, Easter, slightly warmer weather. I wish I had a green thumb but I'm not quite there yet. Maybe one day. I, like K, think about things I want to do. Projects I'd like to start. Ha ha! I know, I'm not always a project finisher.

I was thinking recently about the idea of these projects and how I always want to get things "cleaned up" or better. I've struggled with projects, or with being neat and organized, my whole life. Thankfully, I've had a fairly good memory so even though I'm not really well organized, I've been able to keep up with things. I just pile on more projects, though, and reach a max. And then lose track of things. And tasks. And people.

Is it true, though, that for those of us that have a desire to be organized but struggle with it, to be able to manage projects but are unable to deal with problems that exist, to be able to get things done but aren't always successful, that it's usually an indicator of "control" and a desire to manage the way we live? Could it also be that sometimes it's because we think something better really could be around the corner, and that if we just get this one thing done, that life will be great? Or is it that we want to "keep up with the Joneses" and portray a certain kind of life that seems picture perfect?

Before I became a believer, I thought you had to be a certain kind of person to be a Christian. To be sort of a cookie cutter type of individual, to be good (or boring, depending on how you look at it), to act a certain way. I have since learned that getting cleaned up is the last thing that Jesus is really looking for.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." (Rom 3:23)
"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind" (Eph 2:1-3)
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened..." (Matt 11:28)

We were a mess. The thing is, we still are a mess, but we have been made righteous. We want to be clean, be holy, be righteous, but we can't be that without the Spirit's work. I very much want to get better. I want to be a part of the work to make me better. And while I make the effort, it is the Spirit that must make me better. Not me. And as much as I want to be clean, be organized, be perfect, my heart has to learn that it's not in my own power. And my heart has to be okay with that.