Life returns to normal tomorrow. School resumes for the last few months of the year. Most of the weekend was devoted to taking down holiday decorations. This was after a major clean up of my son's room on Friday. It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff gets accumulated over time. His bedroom still needs more work but it will have to wait until he is at school. This does indeed mean that some of his stuff may vanish into the air. Christmas decorations are a different matter. I will confess to some sadness while taking it down and putting it into the boxes. Seems there is never enough time to just sit and enjoy the lights. Every year it's my intention to make time to do that. Now it will have to wait another eleven months or so.

My youngest really did not think that his room was in such bad shape. This is why my warnings of the coming purge began a day or two before. I also told him exactly what was so messy about his living conditions. He reluctantly agreed to join me in the process. We boxed up old movies that cluttered up his shelves. We found boxes for his video games. We organized all of his stuff to where he could more easily find it. I also swept what seems like a hill of trash from his floor. Can kids messes just multiply on its own? Even he agrees that the room is much better after our efforts than before. There were a few painful moments but it is more than worth it at the end.

It stands to reason that my efforts are somewhat similar to what God does in our life. He knows our messes but is willing to make things right again. We are usually the last ones to discover just how cluttered our world becomes. Current conditions just seem natural to us. Our eyes are blind to the damage happening due to our selfish tendency. In fact, we also tend to be not too excited when God tells us of His plans for us. Human nature seeks to avoid pain at all costs. We will even avoid it in our spiritual life. Spiritual cleansing can be a messy process. We don't see our needs as God does. Our first instinct is to deny to Him that we even need help in the journey. Perhaps we believe God is mistaken in His view of where we really are with spiritual growth. Maybe we just like our comfort zone so much that any hint of change leads us to put up our guard to protect our turf.

One of my recent discoveries resulted from reading from the Old Testament prophets. We usually see them as a doom and gloom lot. This may be how it seems since they did carry a heavy message. But you will discover that their belief in hope or restoration runs just as deep as any message of judgement. God longs to restore us far more than we think. Isaiah is one of those preachers who often spoke quite directly to his listeners. You cannot build a following when you say the things found in his messages. But you can offer hope that God will do more in restoring us than He may do in judging us. It's never easy or fun to launch a full scale cleaning but it is important. You may not enjoy all of the process of God ridding your life of the stuff or the clutter but it is worth it. Let your eyes be opened to God's viewpoint so you can be ready for His activity.

Bro. Trey