Guest Post Saturday: Chris Padgett - "The Mess of Cleaning Up"

Chris is a devoted husband and father as well as being a great musician and speaker. You can check out his website here.

Have you ever noticed that when you try and do a thorough job picking up an area, that it often times becomes even more cluttered in the process? We decided to move the older kids to the attic and my library to the basement, which became the event of the summer. I have thousands of books and we literally (pun intended) had to move them all from top to bottom, taking up days of our time. This in and of itself is a full-time endeavor, but to make matters more crazy, certain furniture the girls were using in the basement needed to be moved to a sister or brother's room, which meant in the end that we have almost managed to look and feel as if we've just moved in to this home (after being here for over six years). We are exhausted but excited. I was thinking about this with regards to our spiritual life (of course). It can be a little tiring and difficult to keep the general maintenance up on our spirituality, especially if we are busy with school and family life. This takes work and regular attention. There are times in our spirituality when the great over-hall takes place. We have maybe a couple of ideas about what needs attention and work, when the next thing we know our whole life seems turned upside down. This is okay, if we remember that God isn't done with us or satisfied with leaving the "house" a mess. He is faithful and just to finish what He started, and for all of us that usually means that we are not allowed to remain in keeping up appearances, or to maintain the status quo. We are invited into His intimacy to be saints, and that will take a lot of work. If you feel like things are out of wack and life is crazy, my advice it to take courage. There usually is a big mess in the cleaning up.