The Things We Wear

Stacks of books. Piles and piles of clothes. Littering the ground in and outside of my bedroom. 

I’d gotten this urge to clean, to purge. The method I followed suggested taking everything off of the shelves and out of the drawers and throwing it on the floor. Instead of looking at the shelf and deciding what to get rid of, you were supposed to assess the mess on the floor and carefully choose what got to stay.

It’s really not as easy as it sounds to filter through your belongings and handpick the ones you want to keep.

A few years ago, I lost a significant amount of weight. I lost a few dress sizes, but I hadn’t learned to shop for clothes that actually fit. During my closet detox, I finally realized that about half of my wardrobe consisted of clothes that were too big. I found shirts with holes, styles I didn’t wear, dresses I felt I “should” keep, just in case, shirts I hadn’t worn in years but felt a certain attachment to.

I suddenly got a picture of my heart.

How I hold onto really ugly things, stuff that’s torn and broken, words that don’t fit me anymore. How I let pesky habits start again, entertain thoughts that aren’t pleasing to Him, and let my mouth get the best of me.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry… But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Colossians 3:5, 8-9

Just like I do with my closet, I let my heart got overloaded with junk, because I refuse to step out of the life I once lived and step into who I really am. I hold onto the past because it’s comfortable, because it’s familiar, because it’s easy. Because sometimes, it just feels “good.”

But I’ve been feeling it lately.

The new year has not been what I expected. I have been anticipating the end of the holidays and the beginning of a new year, a fresh start, a new chapter. But mostly, I feel weighed down, distracted, discontented.

Heavy.

Does anyone else know the feeling? When something is just off?

And when I finally got a long and got quiet, when I cleared out the junk and sat in the stillness, this:

“Because you’re living lifestyles I did not create and you’re believing stories that are not true and you are retreating to place I never intended for you to go.”

This year, right at this very moment, we have to take a good look in the mirror and see who we really are. That we have better things to do that stay in lives that no longer fit us.

No matter what sin we’ve entertained, what thought we keep repeating, what broken words we attach to ourselves, we are His and He has made us new. No matter what skeletons are in our closets, no matter the how big that pile of dusty junk is, we are His. We are not defined by past troubles, sinful behavior, or broken things. Our identity is Him.

Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! -2 Corinthians 5:14-17, The Message

The state of our hearts does not define us. But the fact that He has made us new and whole should make us want to chase after a pure heart as He desires we have. That should be our natural response.

So I encourage you. Pour out your heart to Him like your emptying the innermost corners of your life. Clean out every nook of that closet. Open the windows of your soul and joyfully toss out anything that does not fit the you God says you are. Let go of words that only destroy. Do not clothe yourselves with the wrong identities and don’t waste one more day in a life that’s too small for you.  You were made for so much more. 

You have been made new. And that is true yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever. In this moment and the next.

New, new, new.

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.  Colossians 3:12-14, The Message

 

Image by Brooke Cagle via Unsplash