Clean House

Yesterday I got to have one of those rare days that I call “PJ Day.” I got to stay home all day and didn’t even bother to take my pajamas off. I used the time to do something that was well overdue – clean. I put in a full day’s work plus overtime. At the beginning of the day, those closest to me made comments like, “What do you even need to clean?” As it got later and later in the day, I started getting comments like, “You’re still cleaning?”

Just from looking at the surface, they couldn’t understand why I needed to invest so much time into cleaning something that already looked spotless. From what they could see, every time they came over, everything appeared to always be in order. But what I was cleaning yesterday, were those places I don’t invite others into. I spent the bulk of my time cleaning out the places that I intentionally keep behind closed doors. And not just behind one closed door but behind multiple closed doors.

I always keep the door to my bedroom closed. It seems to be the only place I get to have to myself. Once you step inside my room, you’re greeted by another closed door that leads into my bathroom. Once you make your way pass that door, you’re then met by two additional closed doors, which lead to my closets. It’s here, multiple closed-doors deep, where the bulk of the cleanup needed to take place.

Sweaters that were once nice and neatly folded on the top shelf of the closet were never replaced after they avalanched as a result of me attempting to pull one out the middle of the stack. Dozens of shoes, that for some reason never seem to walk themselves back to the shoe rack, lay there helplessly enduring the weight of the mountain of sweaters that fell on top of them. Purses were getting all bent out of shape as they are empty, unused and unreturned to their rightful place. Having more clothes than hangers, there are whole wardrobes worth of old clothes that need to go in order to make room for the new ones that have come. It’s these unseen, not so obvious areas that required such an investment of my time and attention.

The condition of many of our lives are much like the condition of my closets. We attempt to cram so much into each day that it’s inevitable at some point our lives will become overcrowded, overwhelming, and in need of a good cleaning. From the surface we may look like we have it all together, but if we were to allow someone to look behind the areas of our lives that we’ve kept off limits, they would quickly see how much of a mess our lives really are.

We often spend so much time making sure our outward appearance is presentable that we neglect to invest the time needed to make sure our inward man is equally as clean. We’ve made it such a habit of closing the door to our inward disarray, that we’re in denial about how out of control it has become. All the areas of our lives that were once nice and neat and in their proper place have snowballed to the point that not only us, but everyone close to us, are being crushed by the weight of our chaos as we get bent out of shape by the minutest of things. Our schedules are packed but we somehow still feel empty, unused and not in our rightful place. Our lives are so overcrowded from the things of our past that we don’t have the capacity to embrace the new things that God has in store for us.

No longer can we be accepting of such living conditions. It’s time to clean house! We need to stop settling for just being presentable on the outside and start ensuring we’re also healthy and whole on the inside. Many of us not only need to schedule a PJ Day to get our physical house in order but we also need to set aside the necessary time to get our spiritual and emotional houses in order as well.

To go even deeper, get your copy of one or all of our Everyday Wisdom Book Series and subscribe to our Everyday Wisdom Podcast.