Becoming Real
How in Decluttering My Home, I Realized I was Decluttering My Faith
It’s time to lighten up.
For me, at least, although, I suspect you could lighten up, too.
At 65, I’m done with so many things and as I sort through those objects and possessions, I realize that among the “things” that must go are attitudes, lies, and sins I’ve tried to hide beneath mounds of clothes, books, and spiritual activities. A spiritual fire sale.
In essence, like the Velveteen Rabbit, Pinnochio, and Neo in The Matrix, after all these decades I find I only want what’s real. Real life. Real faith. Real friends. Real conversation. Real truth. Real love. Real God. Real connection with others seeking to become real.
In removing six trunk-sized storage bags of clothes from my closets, drawers, and storage, I confess that in saying “yes” to the dress, I’ve said no to Jesus’s invitation not to worry about what I will wear or eat or drink. (Matthew 6) I have chased “image” like the world chases it (except without admitting to myself that’s what I was doing). Tried to curate what others see so they will think well of me letting myself believe the lie that it would matter but the car full of donations speaks a truth I can hear.
Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:1-6 ESV)
When God came down He chose to be born “with no beauty" that we should desire him.” Born into a family of modest means and not to power or wealth, He entrusted Himself to the Father and not worldly means. By His life He showed us that God provides all we need— not my Amazon cart.
Too often, I’ve risen from my time with God only to turn to my closet, makeup, mirror for assurance and equipping for my day, believing that somehow, what I look like mattered as much (or more) as what I just read or prayed. But now I see God’s Word and those prayers were more real than yesterday’s fashions piling up at the goodwill. There are many of you who simply wear your clothing and have not used it as a weapon nor a disguise nor a PR tool, may your tribe increase. But I have looked into the mirror of God’s Word and seen my own heart.
As I become real, it is because I hear God being real with me and showing me how I’ve used clothes or words or various means to manage others rather than serve them. I’ll open my heart to the decluttering of my faith and removing all the knick-knacks of religion collecting dust when my shelves should have more room for fruits and gifts He provides.
And sure, the headlines are full of issues I believe can best be addressed by a right understanding of God’s Word such as:
people who struggle with disordered thinking about gender and sex (and who hasn’t?) deserve sincere compassion where we are quick to listen and slow to speak but that loving them includes delivering truth about God’s design
or that forgiving someone who has repented of sexually abusing children doesn’t include helping them violate their probation by trusting them around children which should have been obvious because that involved deception and secrecy from other believers. We can avail ourselves of God’s forgiveness and be embraced into the fellowship of believers while still facing long-term consequences of our sinful choices (like never again being trusted near children), ask Abraham and Sarah.
or that political systems of this world can wear our faith like an accessory but we are fools if we fall for that scheme because God opposes pride and greed and the early believers shared all their possessions willingly out of love not under government compulsion so those who are called into politics by God should proceed with humility and be on guard against all kinds of evil and the rest of us should be careful not to call right what God calls evil.
But I guess the headline in my hours with God of sorting through all that must go and what little can stay is that Christian hypocrisy is on the morning ticker tape in God’s 24/7 news channel because it stinks to heaven and is a ball and chain choking the life and breath out of the gospel in our times.
The only way to combat it is to cooperate with the painful process of becoming real— real followers of Jesus, real lovers of others, tellers of real truth with lives that align with our words.
We sin. Even though we don’t have to sin any longer because Jesus has provided a way we do because our old nature fights with the new (Romans 7:15). But when we sin, if we confess and agree with God about that sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us. So, we should live honestly, be real and not pretend that either we don’t sin or that our sin is fine because we live under grace. It’s not fine. Sin is against God and we are for God so we are against sin.
I hate my sin— vanity, pride, envy, prayerlessness, selfishness, greed and a measure of hypocrisy. After over sixty years of walking with Jesus, you’d think I’d have overcome it all by now but there it is, hidden in my closets, on my bookshelves, among the trinkets and costumes I use to curate myself so others cannot see the real me.
But, perhaps, like Pinocchio, as I confess each lie and toss it away with the items hoarded in the junk drawers of my soul, I am becoming a real girl, a real disciple, a real child of God preparing to enter an eternity of what is real and living it even now in the kingdom of now and not yet.
Impossible to walk through this world and not collect its burrs, I suppose, but with God, nothing is impossible.
But the Velveteen Rabbit is a child’s story and Pinocchio is a fairy tale and Neo only exists in a modern myth, you say. And I will answer you with words C.S.Lewis wrote to his friend Arthur Greeves about what he learned in a conversation with Tolkien and Hugo Dyson:
“Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e., the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call ‘real things’.”
Fake lives and hypocrisy don’t only exist in the church. The world is full of pretense and deception and sinners trying to hide. The difference is that our hypocrisy demonstrates a fear of truth and a lack of love. As we follow the God who is truth and love, we cannot tolerate one wooden limb of hypocrisy, not one wooden eye, nor wooden chamber of a heart.
As much as it hurts (and it will), we must be willing to become real.
Thoughts? I really want to hear you on this one. I respond to every comment and reply to every email.
Excellent post, Lori. I usually think and pray about the things I need to add to my life of faith (serving others) rather than about the spiritual clutter I need to get rid of… thinking too much about how others perceive me is pure clutter! (and keeps making its way back into the house no matter how often I chuck it out)
Wow some heavy duty thoughts here and excellent writing. I need to rethink the decluttering of my faith, thanks to you. This post is worth wide distribution. Maybe rework and send it to Christianity Today or similar. One small criticism--did you realize that third point was one L O N G sentence? Continued blessings as you are obviously writing for Him.