Messy rooms & dark hearts...

I'm realizing more and more that the world in which we surround ourselves with gives indication as to where our hearts and minds lie. After working at KAM last year, some of the guys would leave their blinds closed and the lights off. Often they would try to close their doors and leave their rooms messy. Most of us would probably just look at that and think they are undisciplined. True...almost every single one of them was undisciplined in some way or another, but aren't we all?

That's not the point. The point is that these things I noticed gave indication that their hearts and minds were in darkened and troubled states. "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:21-22). They wanted to be isolated and in the dark...because of their shame, their guilt, and their fears. I, too, am just as guilty of these things.

I was reading in Genesis 1 a couple of months ago and immediately became convicted about the lack of tidiness in my own room. In the beginning, God brings order and light to chaos and darkness. Why was my own room dark & chaotic? Because I have recently divulged all the darkest, ugliest sins of my past & present. Confession is amazing, but it doesn't clean up the mess...it merely sheds light on it. I opened my blinds. Now that I could see, the real work began. I cleaned & organized my room.

Simple problem, simple solution.

How can I expect God to help me clean up the mess in my heart & mind while I'm unwilling to make the simple changes to keep what is in my control in order (room cleanliness, car maintenance, finances, etc.)? If He can't trust me with the small things, how can I expect Him to trust me with the large things?

I believe it was Gene Getz who once said, "Show me a man who is committing adultery, and I'll show you a man who is dishonest in every area of his life." See the connection?

All this to say that I believe there is truly a direct correlation between the physical world and the spiritual world. If I look & find chaos, darkness, and disorder in any area of my life in the physical realm, I can be assured I haven't surrendered an area (or many areas) of my heart to God in the spiritual realm. As a dear brother once said, "Where you find the Spirit of God hovering, you'll see some amazing things about to happen..."