Messiness is not always a bad thing .......... Parables 495

December 12, 1995

The poster says, “A clean desk is a symptom of a sick mind.”

Whether my mind is hale and hearty is debatable, but one thing is certain, my desk is never clean. At the moment, one side hosts a stack of research for something I am writing, two magazines, a calculator and three letters. The other side is buried under a pile of receipts, two cassette tapes, a glass of water, a book, reminder notices of events, my cordless phone (the cradle is somewhere) a box of diskettes, a basket of pens, memo paper, some business cards, and an open notebook stuffed with loose pieces of “to do” notes to myself.

The mess bothers me enough to clear it off about once a week but in no time it is messy again. Actually, according to a verse in Proverbs, I should be proud of the mess. The verse says, “Where there is no oxen, the stall is clean.”

Solomon, who wrote most of Proverbs, knew if a living, working animal was around, a mess could be expected. If nothing else, my messy desk indicates I am alive and working.

Also, my mess has a redeeming quality — it is never the same. This morning, the pile included two boxes of tissue, a cross stitch kit, three magazines and an invoice for my mother. By tonight, the contents of the mess will change again. To paraphrase that Proverb: “Where there is life and activity, there will be a mess to clean up!”

Active living creates debris of all kinds. There would be no “messes” if we never did anything, never took risks, never created, never involved ourselves in work or play. Desks would be clean — as would homes, garages and life — clean, but uneventful and boring.

The risk takers in life endure fatigue, physical harm, emotional downturns, ridicule, and failure. Those things can be “messy.” But without risk, there would be no exploration, no conquests, no inventions, nothing new. So along with adventure, risk takers usually have to clean up — the first man to use fire had to carry out the ashes — but his cave was warm.

As far as taking risks goes, God qualifies. Imagine the angels when they first heard His plan to redeem the world: “What? Risk Your only Son in a virgin birth? Have Him raised by ordinary parents? Why have Him become something so vulnerable as a human being?”

Maybe they added, “You mean Your plan for Him includes only three and one-half years of preaching and teaching? And it will climax with everyone deserting Him? And the religious leaders hating and killing Him? Oh, what a mess that would be!”

Even riskier were three days in a grave, a resurrection, then returning to heaven leaving a handful of astounded disciples to manage the message of redemption. How could God trust the greatest story in the world to mere sinners, stubborn and slow to learn? Would they do the job and take the message that Jesus died and rose again to the whole world?

Perhaps God said to the angels, “This is my plan. If the disciples do not succeed, it is the only plan I have. I am willing to risk it.” So He did.

The disciples took a risk too. When they took the Gospel to the world, most of them were persecuted and killed. Only John lived to old age and he died in exile. Some would call them failures yet generations later, other risk takers have heard and passed it on, taking the risk of fatigue, persecution, ridicule and physical harm. By God’s grace, the power of the Gospel continues to transform ruined lives and mend broken homes.

Christians who avoid the cost (sometimes very messy) of sharing the Gospel will discover that not working might give them “clean stalls” but tied to their safe, no-risk choice is boredom, spiritual lethargy and a vague sense of wondering if they are in the right place.

Discarded and Useless? ................. Parables 239

(October 17, 1990)

The old crab apple tree was dead, an eyesore in the back yard. It’s owner remembered years of fruit-bearing as he sadly axed the tree and cut it into firewood for his barbecue pit. While he chopped, an elderly neighbor dropped by. The owner remarked how his tree was rotten to the core and no longer useful. The neighbor looked through the growing pile of wood, selected a few pieces, and asked if he could borrow them. The tree owner nodded and went back to his axe.

A few days later, the neighbor came to the door. In his hand was a small wooden plate and an intricately carved wooden gavel. “Just thought I’d return your ‘useless’ firewood,” he said.

“Rotten and useless” is sometimes a matter of “Sez who?” The peach I refuse to eat may be perfectly acceptable to a pig who isn’t quite as fussy. What I might save for recycling, someone else would toss out. And how about people? Are some really rotten through and through? When it comes to evaluating folks, our estimation might be just a matter of opinion.

There were some definitely rotten characters in the Bible. One was Cain, who murdered his brother Abel — because he was jealous. Another was Judas Iscariot, who sold Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver. We might expect God to put these on the discard pile.

Or how about Jacob? He duped his older brother into trading a bowl of porridge for his birthright, an important status in a Jewish family. Not only that, he dressed up in his brother’s clothes and fooled his father into giving him the blessing that didn’t belong to him. He wrangled and dealed for years and had he lived today, he would have been labeled a no-good cheat.

Then there was a king named Manasseh, who “seduced (the people) to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed... he did wickedly above all that the Amorites did... made Judah sin with his idols... shed innocent blood... till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another... made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem do worse than the heathen, whom the LORD had destroyed...”

Sounds like four rotten-to-the-core people. Would God discard all four? Surprisingly not; two of them were redeemed. That is, two were forgiven and became righteous, useful citizens.

At first, it appears the other two, who didn’t rate, were tossed aside because their sins were worse. However, when examining Scripture, the degree of sinfulness is not a significant factor to redemption. Instead, it appears God reached out His loving hand to all four, but only two reached back.

Jacob literally wrestled with God, not to get away from Him but with a strong effort to obtain a blessing, something he definitely didn’t deserve. God touched Jacob’s life and changed him from a scheming cheat to a godly man. Manasseh wrestled in a different way. God sent an enemy nation to destroy his reign. As the Assyrian army carried Manasseh off to Babylon bound in chains, he “humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto Him.” God heard his prayer and brought him back to reign again. Manasseh took away the idols and restored worship. He was a changed man.

Cain and Judas didn’t fare so well. Neither one sought the Lord with humility or a contrite heart. One “went out from the presence of the Lord” and the other tried to deal with his guilt by destroying himself.

When it comes down to it, most of us evaluate “rotten people” like the man with the axe and the crab apple tree. We too easily see only useless lives, whereas God can see potential and purpose. Not only that, when yielded to Him, uselessness can become something beautiful in His hands.