I emptied my kitchen cabinets, food, pots and pans, and utensils to prepare for the refinishing project that was to be completed while I was out of town this week. I was expecting the project to be complete when I got home so I could put my kitchen back together and get on with normalcy.  The project wasn’t quite complete when I got home – the doors and drawer faces were still drying, so I stocked the shelves and drawers without the doors and drawer faces.  Cabinet doors and drawers hide what is in my cupboards, today everything is exposed.

When someone walks into our home or life the cupboard doors are generally closed. It isn’t polite to look in someone’s cupboard unless you are a friend or invited to participate in the daily activities of life, so we keep them shut. Cupboards hide stuff. We walk around perceiving and judging the exterior of people’s lives and compare ourselves to their exterior. We immediately judge their cupboard doors. We spend an inordinate amount of our lives cleaning up our exterior so we can present a finished look, while the stuff we shove in our cupboard gets more and more disorganized and weighed down with the previous stuff that has been hidden from sight.

We work on protect ourselves from others by keeping our doors tightly shut. There is no transparency. We’ve been hurt by people who have not been careful with the stuff in our cupboard – we’ve opened ourselves to the wrong people. We’re afraid of what lurks in our own cupboards, so we don’t trust others or ourselves. We’re afraid of what lurks in their cupboards, so we don’t trust others or ourselves.

The basic truth we must trust and comprehend, based in Christ’s word is that every heart, soul, mind, spirit and body is a mess – a really big mess. God’s word calls us to know this about ourselves and about those around us. We are afraid of the little messes that opening our cupboard doors and being transparent might expose. Those little messes pale in comparison to what is really going on in us and everyone, but keeps us so busy hiding them that we cannot view the big picture. We are blind to the really big mess; we are blind, thinking that the little messes are what make the big mess when just the opposite is true.

God’s word calls us to be transparent, to open our heart, mind, soul, spirit, eyes, and ears. We are called to take a deep look at the bigger picture – the Messiah stepped into the mess. Christ Jesus was born, lived perfectly, suffered, died and rose to new life. Jesus looked at people, beyond their polished exterior into their heart; he knew what was in their cupboards without giving them opportunity to open the door. Look at me, my life is a mess, but that mess turns into his message. The journey I’ve been on is like emptying all my cupboards, allowing his word to clean up the gunk from all the years, leaving the doors off because there is nothing to hide, looking into my heart and soul. This journey has brought me to confront my own fears and has brought me the courage to look into your eyes and ask, “how’s your heart?”

Paul declares: For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. ⁷But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. ⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. ¹¹For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. ¹²So death is at work in us, but life in you. 1 Corinthians 4:6-12

May God grant us courage to allow his word to bring transparency to our lives, to allow our fears, our hurts, our hopes and dreams to be exposed to his word so that true freedom in Christ can come. May God grant us boldness to call to him and ask him what we should want from him. May God grant us boldness to speak his mercy into the messes into one other’s closed hearts and souls. May God’s peace be with us. Blessings IN Christ, Cindy

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