REARRANGING THE SAME OLD FURNITURE

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

If we are to “catch” the real peace we are pursuing, we must get off the world’s treadmill of “striving after wind,” and we must seek the abundant life of Christ. After all, He willed to us His peace (John 16:33). How do we cash in on this legacy? How do we trade off fretfulness and stress for this peace He means for us to have?

Granted, to some extent this involves shedding some of the world’s trappings that we have tried to substitute for the real thing. Most of us know, even if we aren’t telling anybody else, what some of that junk is. We are right to desire to be purged of bad habits and low thinking. However, even in this noble desire to clean up our lives, if we are not careful to pay attention to scripture, we will end up just rearranging the same old furniture. The room might look a little different, but we will settle into it no more peacefully.

I have heard women in drug rehab centers say that they are there to get their lives “cleaned up.” They want the bad things out of their lives so that they can live lives of peace. However, Jesus tells us a parable in Luke 11:24-26 that helps us to see that a good housecleaning is at best a temporary measure and at worst an invitation for even more trouble to enter in. “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding not any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds it swept and in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” The first time I read this, I was shocked at the ending. I thought the man would be rewarded for cleaning up his act. But there is a hint in what He said just before the parable: “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (v.23).

Peace is about being with Jesus. He seems to be saying that what is most important is that we are attached to Him. Otherwise, whatever we are doing, whether it looks moral or not, actually scatters, rather than bringing our lives together into a peaceful state.

Such is the problem with many whom we might dub with the modern, trendy label of "OCD." It seems like most of us by now have decided this thing, rather than being a real affliction, is at worst a lightweight and laughable burden and at best a secret badge of superiority: (" Because I am so OCD, I just cannot let myself get away with living like this!" they say, as they make a huge sweep of the hand around your less-than-perfectly-tidy, less-than-squeaky-clean house.) And if we are going to have to admit that all of us have impediments, I can certainly see how it would be a lot more savory to lay claim to being OCD than to being a kleptomaniac or a pedophile. But do you see what I'm saying here?

Super-tidiness/"togetherness"and even hyper-morality, for its own sake, has no power to bring peace; rather it usually brings only a shockingly disappointing emptiness. We thought such diligence would be the key- would finally be enough- but it failed miserably to satisfy somehow.

The Bible is one long love story of God’s pursuit of us for the purpose of our being united with Him with some unswept corners and a little clutter rather than scattered from Him with all our ducks in a row. Swept clean is not enough. It just leaves us empty and vulnerable again. Staying attached to the True Vine—being filled with His Spirit—is our only hope for true peace.

From Still on the Wheel, a visionary sequel to Broken Jar:365 Days on the Potter's Wheel.