I remember those old comedy shows of the 50’s and 60’s. They were simple compared with the television series works of today. They were vaudeville-ish, with much slapstick style humor. One of the recurring themes in those comedies was a clean room, which was to undergo inspection, usually by a parent. The room always looked ship shape. The parent, hopeful, walks through the room and looks it over, everything looking good and seemingly in place. The inspection is passed and then the scene continues with a conversation about how the parent wants to reward the child for such a good job. The reward is something like a new baseball bat or a new doll. The child smiles, somewhat queasily, knowing the secret, which the unsuspecting parent knows nothing about. The child nervously dismisses the parent’s attempt to reward them as unnecessary. The parent, somewhat surprised tells them that a good deed should get rewarded. The parent goes on to say something to the affect of how old or outdated the child’s old bat or doll is, just as their hand reaches out and grasps the doorknob of the child’s closet. “Here, I’ll show you. Let’s look at your old bat (doll). Is it in here?” the parent says, as they turn the knob and open the closet door. The child’s eyes widen with anticipation. The parent, who is facing away from the door as they pull it open, never sees the wall of objects that comes cascading out of the opening door and eventually buries them under the debris. We see that the child has “cleared” their room, but only by cramming it all into their closet and then forcing the door shut. The truth is revealed. The child has not truly cleaned and ordered their room. They have merely stacked it all away, making their closet a disorganized, virtually unusable space. The child has also deceived the parent and therefore receives a consequence.
There are probably none of us who haven’t approached some aspect of our lives or some period of our lives in this childish fashion. Somehow we humans have the uncanny ability to trick even ourselves. We have these little devices or ways of “clearing” our lives and yet, somehow not really taking care of the situation. We clear it out of our way, out of our thoughts, without really dealing with it. The room of our life that we’re currently standing in actually looks pretty clean and orderly, but there’s this closet door, off to the side, which even we are trying to forget about, trying not to look at.
Sometimes what happens is that an unsuspecting person will come along in our lives and see us in our cleared room and think that all is well with us, because we’ve given that view, that impression. The unsuspecting person reaches over without realizing what they’re doing and yanks at the closet door, innocently asking, “What’s in Here?” In answer we quickly run over and press our backs to that door and while displaying a disarming smile, we say, “Nothing, just some old stuff I’ve got stored away and need to go through later.” True enough, but when? Sooner or later the door won’t hold all that we’ve stored away and whether we like it or not, some of that stuff starts spilling out into the cleared room.
What’s the answer? Why not try doing a little house cleaning with God? Take time to chat with Him, or, what’s even better, take some time to share some of it with a trusted friend and have them help you seek the Lord’s way in it. You’ll be surprised how much easier it is to get the cleaning done when the hand of a friend and the Lord are there to share the load. Blessings!

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