I doesn’t matter who you are, there’s just something about a clean room. You walk in and your heart is at ease. You breathe deep with genuine satisfaction, for everything is complete. Your carpet is vacuumed, your shades are dusted, your bed is made, and all your clothes are hung up. Haaaaah…the long awaited exhale of order – it’s deeply satisfying.
The past two months of my life have been rather challenging. Through post-eating disorder thoughts, the desire to fully control my time, and random spouts of insecurity, I have seen how un-together I am. I am learning, in some areas quicker than others, that when I try to control things, they get out of hand, for my solution is rarely the right one. When I try to create my own way of ordering things, they often times end up chaotic. I pile on one thing after the other until WHAM! I’m lost in it. My room (my heart that is) gets messy.
I believe we were created to be in order. If God made our hearts, our bodies, and the world in which we live, it would make sense that he knows how they best work together. On a WAY smaller scale, it’s almost like a software developer who knows the ins and outs of the program he developed. He knows what things work well with other things and what it takes to make everything run properly. He knows what commands will cause disaster and what commands will cause success. How? Because he created it, and He knows it that well. He purposed the program to run smoothly, and he created a way in which that could happen. The program wont be successful unless it runs as it should.
If God created us for a specific purpose, or plan, He must have created a way in which we were to complete, or pursue, it. I don’t believe that God just placed us here with the hope that we would do what we want, when we wanted to. (If that were the case, I’d have to question God. I mean, C’mon! Creating man for nothing…that just seems like a waste of time.) I believe He placed us here to follow him – to be in order with Him – so that through us He could do miraculous things that would further His glory and kingdom.
The other morning, I woke up with intense anxiety. As I got ready for work, my mind raced with all sorts of thoughts about my paycheck, how much I had spent over the past month, and how much I needed to get through the month. In order to put the internal angst to death, I speed-walked over to my computer and looked up my bank statement. After assuring myself that I was okay, I checked out all of the things I had bought that month. Food, clothes, movie tickets, gum, iTunes songs, and finally, there, tucked into a long list of items, was the amount I had given to causes beyond myself. I felt the sense of security leave me, and again, I felt a lack of peace when it came to my checkbook. Something just felt wrong. Something felt out of line.
Another story hits me…
A few weeks ago I was sitting across the table with a dear friend of mine. As the surface-level ‘catch-up’ conversation started to fade out and the chips in our bowl started to deplete, tears began to flow. As I looked at my friend crying, it was obvious that something was ‘off.’ This time it was in her current relationship. Confusion, worry, doubt, anxiety, unrest, the battle for control, hopelessness, self-blame, and sorrow spilled out. Something was out of sync.
The list goes on and on. A father abandons his wife and child – disorder. A sister betrays her sister by sleeping with her sister’s husband – disorder. A savvy businessman invests his life building an empire but never spends a single day at his child’s soccer game – disorder. Kids get bullied – you guessed it…disorder.
As I mentioned above, I’m no stranger to disorder. Whether it be pride leading me to embarrassment, a improper view of money, or placing my hope in what others think of me, I’ve felt the lack of harmony that comes with living my life out of order. If I were honest with you, I’d let you know that I somewhat feel it now as I struggle with re-learning how to have a healthy view of food. I continually feel the ‘old order’ (the order that wants to control everything I eat so that I can maintain a certain waist size) fighting for my heart, but that’s my woman-made order, and I must learn to let go of the reigns it has on my life. I desire the freedom that only He can bring.
I was listening to a podcast today, and the speaker said something that resonated with me. She said, “Obedience (order) breeds peace; disobedience (disorder) breeds chaos.” So true.
If I believe I was created by the God of the Bible (which I do), then I must believe that I was created in His image. In this, I must believe He knows best how I ought to live, for He created the world in which I walk. Didn’t He? His words weren’t given to me just to read and throw aside. They are, in fact, the means by which I which I am to live. He created to be inline with Him. When I’m not, when I’m out of sync, and I feel it because it’s a result of me living life apart from Him, my creator.
Isaiah 26:3 reads, “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trust in you.”
Much like my room, I need order in my heart. I need everything to be in line, and the only way that can happen is by seeking God, the one who gives me life. In seeking Him, I find out what He has to say about where I am. I must humbly allow Him to align my heart with His, even if it doesn’t make sense or is painful for me. This brings order, and order brings peace. Refreshing.
Lindsey Weatherl 