Opening the Door

“If any one of you is in trouble he should pray…a prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.  The Lord will raise him up.  If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. “ - James 5:13, 15-16

This post is a follow-up from the previous post called "Making Room."

The other day I came home and my husband said he wanted to get started cleaning the garage.   So he opened the garage door to the street!   Oh how I wanted to manage that better!  “Can’t we clean the garage without opening the door to the street?”  I asked.  “Here I’ll turn on the light.” I suggested.  Why did we have to open the door to the neighbors?  It's so embarrassing!   Here's why, because for order to occur in the garage, what was making it disorderly had to first come out. 

The truth is, if we really want to clean the garage of our heart, then we have to be willing to open the door and let those who have appropriately close relationships with us, access to our “mess” to help sort it out.    It cannot happen otherwise.  Real transformation requires the dirt of my heart being exposed to another, allowing confession and healing to occur. 

On occasion, someone is in our home, comfortably sitting in our family room, when we happen to open the garage door to the house and bring out something we can share with them, like dessert from the freezer or a cool new toy that may interested them.  Sometimes it takes me a while to find what I’m looking for because, of course, it’s hard to get pass the mess, so they offer to come in and help.  My heart pounds, my blood thins, “NO!  I got it!” is my panicked response.  You see, when we start to expose a part of our heart in front of someone, often the reaction can be similar, like, “YIKES!  I did not expect that; don't mind me, I'm fine.” And we want to cover it all up and shut the door to conversation just as quickly as it crept in.  Yet, this heart exposure is the most honest and real way for us to be together in that setting.   This is true fellowship.   This is our “real-self” instead of our “should-self” showing up to the conversation and it invites God’s spirit along with a loving community to be ministers of the gospel to us.  They are helping us clean our garage.  When we open the door to that type of honest confession we open the door of our heart to Christ and it is through Him that we are healed.

To be continued…

Lord, help me set aside my fear and pride so that you can make me clean.  I confess my tendency to hide.  Please help me live openly and honestly before You and others That I might know the light of your love.