There is such a satisfaction in order and clean.
I walk into my garage and it is so full of clutter that I can hardly move around in it. So it’s time to clean things up. Throw away all that stuff I was sure I could find a use for or fix. Throw away all the stuff others, my grandson usually, bring that is never going to get used.
Space is made and things are put away. One can walk about, see what one has and actually get to it. Orderliness, it’s a wonderful thing.
Then things get dusted off and the floor swept. It’s incredible how much dust and dirt can collect over time in a space where the door to outside isn’t open that much. But do the sweeping and dusting off and the place, old and rough as it is… well you can see the floor… tools and appliances dusted and wiped down have a newness of appearance even if they are old. Cleanness…you don’t mind being in there or touching the things around you.
Have you ever been somewhere you didn’t even want to touch the door knob? There is something about uncleanness that can repulse.
There comes a time in our daily lives when we look at the mess we have around us with new eyes. We can visualize how the space we’re in would look and feel if things were put away, if useless stuff whose presence just weighs on our minds would go away, how wiped down walls and appliances, a swept floor, would be a pleasure to the eye and not be something one wouldn’t want to walk on or touch.
We can visualize it and see just what needs to be done. And there is a desire to get about it and do it. Let’s get things cleaned up and in order the way things are supposed to be.
Do you suppose this could be a God mentality, that when He created us, He placed in us something that when it sees disorder or dirtiness or brokenness, that we have this compulsion?...this drawing?... to fix, to organize, to clean up?... to be able to visualized it in our minds and have a sense of how good it would be to actually bring this about?... in our own circumstances and…maybe even to be helpful in the circumstances of others?
That’s the way He is isn’t He? He has this vision of how things should be and He is about the task of making them that way.
To bring orderliness and clean up things in the garage requires rearranging, cleaning up, getting shed of the useless stuff that just hinders our ability to do something productive. It’s going to mean letting go of some fanciful thoughts and it will mean getting dirty in the work. But the end result is order and clean, a place and resources to accomplish something good and useful.
The world our Father created has become cluttered and dirty and broken. It is filled with useless and nonfunctioning beliefs and ideas and behaviors piled one on top of another, that hinder finding the good and useful things and being able to perform a useful and good purpose.
He has a vision, knows what things should look like and has been at work cleaning things up and putting them in order a long time now. And He was willing to get dirty in the process.
His tabernacle was in the middle of the camp, surrounded by the uncleanness of the people. But He was there.
His Son forsaking the glory of heaven, occupied flesh and walked about surrounded by and touching the defiled of this world.
In the end He made Himself unclean to bring to cleanness those who were not.
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Philippians 2:5-8 AKJV
We are meant to be our Father’s children…be like Him. And so He created within us shadows of His character that come alive when the Spirit moves… and become who we are if we are willing to surrender and obey.
With hearts clean and lives ordered we are fit to do useful and good things in the Spirit of Him who made us.
Father…in us, dormant or alive, are the makings of Your image and likeness.
Give us eyes to see and hearts of desire for them.
In the circumstances of life enable us to see the need, know what to do and have a willingness to be about it…orderly and clean…and be about it in the hope and joy of accomplishing a good thing in Your sight.
May You be glorified we pray…in Yeshua’s name,
Amen.
May God’s love be in us all.
Elder
