Hoarders

I don’t watch a lot of TV. If I do, it’s usually when I’m at my parents’ house, and that hasn’t been consistent in the last four years of college and one year of living overseas. But I’m home again for a three-month stretch, and there’s one show that has captured my attention. It’s a sick fascination, actually. The show is called Hoarders. Each episode shares the stories of two people who have filled their houses with stuff, usually from floor to ceiling. After watching one episode, I was so disturbed that I went and cleaned out my closet.

One show featured a woman who had over 50 dogs and cats in her house. She didn’t just love animals; you could tell she was desperately lonely.  One man hadn’t been able to access certain rooms for years because they were so full. He bought a little mini-fridge to keep in his bedroom because he couldn’t get to the main refrigerator.

It seems insane, and these people often need professional help, but I realize that these hoarding tendencies usually start after people experience a significant loss. There is real pain; they cling to the past, look for security and fulfillment in objects that others would deem as worthless, unusable trash. They dumpster dive and Goodwill shop, looking for steals and deals. And their houses fill.

Hoarders interests me because it’s not a show that parodies these people’s problems. They bring in expert organizers, but they also bring psychologists to help tackle the mountains of emotional issues often linked to the mountains of possessions. They want to bring real change. The problem is, most of the time all they can offer is therapy and a team with three Got Junk? trucks.

I can’t help but liken this show to my own life, my own heart. You may have heard the analogy of our hearts being like houses, and over the courses of our lives, we accumulate things and pack them away, filling up our heart’s rooms. These could be hurts, memories—haunted or treasured—along with idols we use to fill up the emptiness. Our reconciliation to God is likened to us moving out of our “house” and Jesus moving in. We give him the keys to the house and make him Lord of our lives. Still, though he might now have keys to the front door, sometimes there are rooms locked away, areas where we just don’t want him to go. We have places in our hearts like the West Wing in Beauty and the Beast.  Off limits. Too painful, too private, too compromising, too shameful. And maybe blocking the way is a whole hallway full of junk.

I watch Hoarders, incredulous at how some people exist in such squalor, but I ignore my own “house”, filled to capacity with trash. Except it’s not milk cartons, cassette tapes, clothes, knick-knacks, and animal feces. It’s fear, pain, lies, false gods, and pride. And I’m hoarding them.

The good news is, Jesus doesn’t show up with a dump truck or filter through piles of my trash, asking what to keep and what to chuck out.  He knows I need healing, a deep purge of everything in me that’s not of Him. And when I truly surrender my life, I’m giving him the key to every room in my house, however painful it is, because I can finally see that he himself is all I’ve ever wanted. Those things I looked to for satisfaction and fulfillment and purpose—they don’t even come close to what He offers.

Psalm 139:23-24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”  I’ve read these verses many times, but Hoarders gave me a new perspective on it. I can see that therapist inch his way around mounds of boxes, or the team with protective masks as they rid a kitchen of rotten food. God searches out every hallway, every corner, and he removes the ruined clothes, the broken things, the offensive smells. He leads us in a better way.

Suddenly there’s no more room for fear, or lies, or pride; they’re replaced with the light of his presence, the depth of his detailed, specific love, the beauty of who he is.

He fills every room.

More Than Words

My mom recently told me the story of how I learned to read.

“We’d be driving down the road, and with every sign we passed, you’d chime from the back, ‘What’s that say? What’s that one say?’ After a while you could sound them out without help.”

I’ve always loved words. Sometimes I’ll play this game when traveling: I’ll look out the window but I’m not allowed to read any signs. It’s really hard. I’m one of those font nerds, too; I’ll see a billboard and think, That looks familiar…oh, it’s Century Gothic. To take this obsession even further — “words” is the theme of my upcoming wedding. We’re even having a Scrabble cake.

Words play a substantial role in my life. But lately I’ve sensed God challenging me on how much emphasis I put on their meaning, especially words that I deem true about His character. If someone asked me, “So what’s God like?”, I could easily rattle off a list of His attributes: loving, faithful, holy, just, sovereign, unchanging, gracious, strong.

But do I really believe that about God?  How do words lose their power and end up just marks on a page?

In his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer makes a bold claim: “The most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.” He explains that our life and choices stem from how we view God. This tells me that words true about God need to be true in my day-to-day existence, not just nice sounds coming out of my mouth or artsy fonts sprawled across my blog.   

Ok, so I pick a few words and hold them up against my everyday reality.

Trustworthy.  God is trustworthy, I can say that. It’s biblical. It’s true.

But if God really is trustworthy, then why do I worry? Why do I stay awake at night, plagued by what-ifs? Why do I let fear make my decisions?

Another one: powerful. I believe that, right?

Then why don’t I pray—about everything? Doesn’t he say that all things are possible with Him?

Strong.

God is strong? Then why do I use my weakness as an excuse when He’s calling me to a higher road?

Generous.

Then why don’t I ask?

Healer.

Then why do I hold my wounds up to the world’s false remedies?

Holy.

Then why do I treat sin with such a casual attitude?

Loving.

Then why do I approach His throne with anything less than confidence, secure in His love and in what Jesus did through his death and resurrection?

How do I view God? Do I see these words as His outfits, something He can put on and take off, something true about him sometimes but not at other times?  Or do I see them as His very nature, as who He is?

In John 18:37, Jesus tells Pilate that “for this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” I think he means the truth about what God is like. He came to a world very confused about who God is, and he lived a life of demonstration. It’s as if he took one word at a time, and he didn’t just say them. He showed them.

 “God is compassionate.” So Jesus went out and healed the blind, lame, leprous.

“God is holy.” He drove the money changers and merchants out of the temple.

“God is sovereign.”  He baffled Mary and Martha by letting Lazarus die, a greater purpose in mind.

“God is loving.” He took our punishment upon himself.

Are these just words to me? Or do I see them as truth about God that I’m desperate to imitate?

I’m drawn to words, and I love that God made me this way. I can’t wait until my own children ask me about those words flying past the car window. But I’m in constant prayer that the shapely ink marks and rich sounds won’t fade into meaninglessness or render me callous to the reality they represent. I need their truths about the Living Word to shape me into His likeness and propel me into worship.

Help My Unbelief!

This will be a short post, but I wanted to share something God has been speaking to me. Lately I've indulged worry and anxious thoughts, about wedding plans, about work, about my future. And Jesus was right: worrying doesn't add any hours to your life. And I'd say it ruins those hours you do have.

So I've been praying that God would help me to trust Him. I was reading in Romans 3, and verse 3 seemed a font size larger than the rest of the page.

"What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all!"

Short yet deep.

What's it saying? God is still trustworthy even if I struggle to trust Him. His character does not change just because my feelings do. The depth and purity and fact of who He is does not depend on whether I feel it to be true or not. Thank the Lord that our lack of faith doesn't nullify His faithfulness.

Faith isn't just believing that God will do what He said He will do. It's also believing that He is who He says He is. When feelings contradict the truth of the Word, I can cry out like the father of the demon-possessed son did: "I do believe; help my unbelief!"

Every one of my days needs this reminder, that in the fluctuation of my emotions and circumstances, God is still the same.