I came home 2 weeks ago and there were clothes everywhere! Natalie was doing a big spring clean. She had a keep pile, a get rid of pile and a maybe pile.
Marie Kondo was the inspiration. I never knew that the new television show had inspired her so much. A couple of days later I came home and she was folding my clothes in a way that I could see everything in my draw.
“Marie Kondo” was everywhere on the news, Facebook, internet and people were talking about her all the time.
Our culture
This got me thinking about our culture - we like our house to be neat, tidy and all in order. So what does this mean for my relationship with The Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit)?
In our culture, and even in church culture we emphasise the external house more than our internal house. When something breaks in our house, we normally get it fixed. If something internal isn’t working the way it should, we just push on, harden up or try to push it to the side.
Our piles
What does it mean to have our entire external and internal house all in order? Let’s have a think about how we spring clean and go through our house to make it tidier. When we are doing a spring clean, we have a keep pile, a maybe pile and donate to The Salvation Army pile.
This is the same with our internal house, we have a things-in-there-we-like pile, things-we-don’t pile and the maybe some-things-we-aren’t-too-sure-that-we-want-to-separate-from-even-though-we-know-we-should pile.
We all have those things in our maybe pile that we don’t wear but it’s hard to get rid of because we have had it for so long. We go through life and we encounter pain, hurt etc. from friends, family, strangers, social media and even ourselves. From these experiences we can learn lies about God and ourselves.
We often put up walls to protect ourselves. Our mind is what often stops God from being able to get in and heal our heart and body. It’s really important to get rid of the unbelief we are holding onto and replace this with the truth.
Our tools
How about we jump in and give this a go – why don’t you try walking out these tools with me? You have nothing to lose!
We are going to ask Jesus the following questions:
- Jesus, is there an unbelief I am holding onto?
- Jesus, who taught me this unbelief?
- I forgive .... for teaching me ....
- Jesus what is your truth?
Then ask the same questions to Father God and to the Holy Spirit. The different members in the Trinity represent people in our lives. Father God represents our earthly Father, The Holy Spirit represents our mother and Jesus represents our siblings and friends.
Spring cleaning is considered an ‘annual cleaning’. But instead of just cleaning our houses once in a while, we need to clean our internal house more regularly.
Just like how after a spring clean our houses are all in order, the tools above will help us to align our internal house. This will strengthen our relationship with the Trinity as well as give us the ability to live free of the unwanted stuff in our lives.
A good habit to get into once we have spring cleaned is to not let our house get filled with unwanted items. This is the same after we get our internal house in order.
When someone wrongs you, it’s important to keep short accounts and forgive them straight away. Forgiving someone is for our benefit. When we forgive someone, we ensure that the unbelief we learnt doesn’t grow to become something that needs a big spring clean again.
Barry Kirby is a disciple of Jesus Christ, living in relationship with Father God, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Barry is with the Salvation Army based in Wellington, New Zealand.
Barry Kirby is a disciple of Jesus Christ, living in relationship with Father God, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Barry works and worships with the Salvation Army based in Wellington, New Zealand.
