I didn't have much interest in keeping my room clean when I was growing up. When we were young, Saturdays were the day we had to clean our rooms and I will admit that I gave as little effort to this as possible. If I could stuff it under the bed, hide it in a closet, cram it into a drawer or in other creative ways hide my mess, that's what I did. When I finally got my own room down the basement, the rules had become much more relaxed (i.e. we wore our parents down) and I could could neglect cleanliness to my heart's content. You could say my parents gave me over to my slovenly tendencies. I used to have a photo of my room from this period of time, which demonstrates the point, but I couldn't find it, so I'll have to use one of the top of my desk. Just multiply the disarray on the desk and you'll have a good idea of what my room looked like.
I threw my dirty clothes on a heap in the corner on the tiled floor and occasionally put some of them in the washing machine. One day, I decided I should pick all of them up to put them in the wash and found that at the bottom of the pile, some bugs had been happily eating away at my underwear. This had an amazingly motivating effect on me. Suddenly I had a reason to care about where I put my clothes. This was exactly what Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle might have ordered for me, if she'd been consulted on my case. My habits improved a little. The next transformation occurred when I moved into an apartment during my college years. During the interview for the apartment (currently inhabited by two other college students), my prospective roommates asked me about my general attitude toward cleanliness - it turned out that this was an important factor in the decision. I assured them that I was quite neat (oh, the deceit of it all) and when they chose me to live there, I felt bound to keep up my end of the bargain. Somewhere along the line, I realized that it was much more pleasant to live in a clean apartment, in spite of the draconian rules about cleaning out the tub after every use and wiping down the kitchen counter after making a meal. My own room stayed rather rumpled, but I was in earnest about making sure my roommates had no reason to regret picking me.
And so it has continued over the years, small moments of graceful transformation. I will never be fastidiously neat, but I can no longer enjoy living in a mess. The work involved in sanctifying my home has become less of a burden and more of a blessing.
How very like what God does in our lives when He begins to sanctify our souls. There's no hiding our mess from Him. First, He illuminates our sin for us by allowing us to wallow in it; He gives us over to it and in His grace lets us truly taste the bitterness of our choices. In a series of small graces, He transforms us over time, giving us hearts that long for righteousness and despise sin. He is at work in us giving us the will to please Him and the ability to do the work that pleases Him. He starts with messy souls, declares us clean in Christ, and then sets about making us clean indeed, teaching us how to keep our spiritual house clean and giving us joy in the process.
For I am confident of this very thing,
that He who began a good work in you
will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 1:6
