A Clean Sweep

One of my wife's guilty pleasures is to watch the TV show "Clean House" on the Style Channel. If you've not had an opportunity to see this show its one part psychology and two parts Home Improvement. The premise of the show is a crew of designers and home improvement experts come to a family who has a home that is cluttered from floor to ceiling. Now I am not just talking a little mess here. Oh no! These are people who I would say are on the borderline of being a health risk to themselves and others. For someone who has a semi case of OCD in the area of cleanliness, this show for the first 10 minutes gives me the heeby-jeeebies!

So the show basically cleans out these peoples home and sells all the useless stuff in a yard sale and then takes the proceeds from the yard sale to help pay partly for the home makeover. But the interesting part of the show is it never goes well for any of the home owners. The most noticeable problem is all these folks never want to get rid of any of their stuff. I mean they will go kicking and screaming in not wanting to let go of their useless junk! Instead they want to hold on to 5 year old calendar or 20 year old stuff animal collection and hordes of clothes that are 10 years old and will most likely never come back into style or they will be unable to fit into. So half of the show is watching these people grapple with the fact that if they get rid of all this useless junk, they are going to get a clean home, a home in which they can actually live in. But for most people on the show they can never fully seem to get past this issue.

In the end most of these folks give in (I assume the director has had to threaten some of these folks to the point of bodily harm) and they are provided with a beautiful home makeover and their home is once again a healthy place to live. As I watched one of these shows the other day with my wife, I soon realized this is much like salvation and our coming to the Lord. God is showing us that we are living in a "junk filled" home of sin and if we continue to live this way we are not only damaging ourselves, but others. God has assured us that we need to trust him complicity and in return we will have a life of peace. How often I think back that I too was like one of these home owners, how I thought I was going to loose something of value by giving my heart completely to God. For so many years I kept holding onto the sin in my life thinking that it was of some value - all the while it was killing me. It isn't until we are able to come to an understanding that we can trust God and that He knows whats best for us. Now that I look back and see how horribly foolish I was in thinking that "sin" was going to bring me real happiness is really sobering. Today I walk in devotion to God and I have the peace that surpasses all understanding. As the words of a praise and worship song remind me that "all of you is more than enough for all of me"! If you have not yet released the sin in your life and fully put your love and trust in the Savior, I would implore you to put your trust in Jesus and know that he can wipe away your sins, and give you a clean heart. Sin compared to the Love of God is no contest and it is foolish to think otherwise.