A Beautiful Mess

Photo: Andrea Piacqua, pexels.com

"May these words of my mouth and this mediation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm 19:14, NIV)

My basement workbench doesn’t look anything like my dad’s (which looked a lot like this photo). It’s amazing I can even find what I’m looking for. Mine always starts out well, nice and organized and uncluttered, but all it takes is one tool or can of paint or box of nails to be set down in a hurry to get to something else—and let the mess begin. I will always hold dad’s workbench up in admiration as a goal to aspire to: cans, jars, and plastic boxes of various sizes lined up neatly, each one always containing just the right nail, screw or washer. Nice and tidy, and under control.

But I wonder if that is even possible…

There is a song I love that is based on Psalm 19:14 that also has a seemingly impossible aspiration: “Every hour, every moment, Lord I want to be Your servant; I desire to be a blessing in Your eyes.”

I mean, is “every” even possible, or is it just something to strive for? In my humanity and being prone to wander and being distracted (a lot), can I—can anyone—really be all-in for God, 24/7? Does this great song have it wrong? Is “every hour, every moment” just wishful thinking or just for supersaints? Even the apostle Paul seemed to wrestle with this sort of thing:

“I can will myself to do something good, but that does not help me carry it out. I can determine that I am going to do good, but I don’t do it…”—Romans 7:18-19, The Voice

There are important questions to ask and deal with and not to be avoided in order to Walk healthy and well. To deal with our humanity. To be honest in our conversations with God. To keep it real and not just a Sunday morning thing. This is one of them. And as many times as I ask this “every hour, every moment” question, God’s answer always seems to come down to two things that really matter:

1. Keep striding forward daily, and stop beating yourself up along the way.

When a runner stumbles, he or she doesn’t stop and yell at the pothole for messing up their progress; they get up, shake it off as part of the realities of the journey, and keep running with eyes fixed ahead on the horizon and goal. In the same way, Paul declares the conflict and answer to the daily “every hour, every moment” wrestling match:

“I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.”—Romans 7:24-25

Life happens, but keep running forward anyway. And simply keep running toward and fixing your eyes on Jesus after every stumble. He is always, always sticking up for us and rooting us on, every hour and every moment: “[I] have an advocate who pleads [my] case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the only One who is truly righteous.”—1 John 2:1, NLT

2. A neat and tidy workbench has its place, but it’s not your goal on this journey.

“Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.”—Colossians 3:17

That’s it! Like my dad’s amazing workbench, it’s easy to want to compartmentalize our lives—to focus on our spiritual aspect container, and then find containers for everything else. The truth is, there are not supposed to be cans, jars and plastic boxes for organizing every little thing in our Walk. In a sense, every detail in our lives is all everything else.

This Walk can be messy at times, and filled with tough questions. But it’s always the right path to stay on, and where it is all for One and One for all.

In fact, this Walk probably looks more like my workbench than my dad’s. And that’s a good thing, “every hour, every moment...”

“To do something in Jesus’ name means to do it in a way consistent with His character…your spiritual life is simply your whole life—every minute and detail of it. In other words, God isn’t interested in your spiritual life. God is simply interested in your life. And every moment is an opportunity to do life in Jesus’ name.”—John Ortberg