A Glorious Mess
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president
What are your feelings on Monday? Some would say that Monday’s are never a good day. But this past Monday was really not a good day. Late Saturday evening and into Sunday morning, a wind storm knocked out our power and it didn’t come back on until late Monday evening. So yes, we lost stuff out of our refrigerator. But that wasn’t why it was a bad day either.
Monday was my first day back to work after the holidays. But that also wasn’t why it was a bad day. Monday was a bad day because all three of my children had to leave on Sunday and our house was suddenly very quiet and I missed the hullabaloo that is there when they are home.
When all the family comes home, including their spouses and the significant others in their lives, it is a glorious time! The house is buzzing with activities, there’s lots of laughter, we share stories with each other, deep conversations take place, and mountains of food is fixed and consumed. In a matter of days our house is a huge mess. Rooms that are normally orderly and clean now have open suitcases and clothes half in them and half out of them. Beds are sometimes made and many times not made. But as I surveyed the mess around me, I realized that it is a glorious mess. I loved the mess. Why? Because it meant that all the family was together under one roof.
In my early morning reflections on this mess that was surrounding me, I wondered if maybe that’s the way God feels about us when we are all together at His feet. He must look at us and say, ‘What a mess these children of mine are.’ He knows us well. He knows our favorite foods, our favorite color, our hobbies and our favorite pair of jeans. He also knows all our dysfunctions and weakest points. He knows our past but he dreams for us about our future. He knows all of this but I believe that He still is very pleased when we are gathered around him. We are his glorious mess of a people.
Praise God that He loves His people and He loves his church with all of our burdens and baggage. He loves us all and wants us to keep coming home. In Hebrews 10:25 it says, “Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
In 2019, let us keep coming together at church, in our homes, at prayer meeting, on social media or good old fashioned phone calls to encourage one another and meet at the feet of Jesus. This is God’s wish for his family, to be together with Him, dysfunctions and all.
May God bless you as you walk with Him daily.