By Mark A. Taylor
No one has ever accused me of being neat.
Every year for Christmas, my college roommate (everyone knew he was neat) gave me some new device for organizing my desk or dresser. It always included compartments, cubbyholes, or drawers designed to contain the clutter that filled most of the flat spaces in my room.
Later, when I moved a step or two out of young adult self-absorption, I realized how patient he had been. Pilers have no trouble living with filers. My roommate”s ordered desk and organized closet never bothered me!
But the well-put-together among us live with a special burden when they are paired with someone who”s a mess. And this happens all the time. Especially in marriage.
My wife doesn”t wait for a holiday to encourage my clean-ups. And her solution can seldom be called a gift. More likely it”s a box into which she slides all the debris from my dresser or desk or fills a pile from the corner of the bedroom. “This will be here for you to go through when you have time,” she says sweetly as she hides the box in a closet. And she doesn”t even complain five years later when we seal the carton and move it, unexamined, to the next house.
But I”ve gotten better with age. In fact, just the other day I straightened my CHRISTIAN STANDARDÂ office. “A file for everything, and everything in its file.” That”s my motto when I decide to tidy. Sometimes I later forget where the files are, but that doesn”t discourage me. I like the way I can concentrate on a task at hand without manuscripts, magazines, and memos everywhere to distract me.
“With a desk that clean, no one will think you”re working,” one boss said to me after one of my periodic neatening binges. But I seldom qualify for that accusation. And even when my desk is clear, hidden inside my computer where no one sees them, are years-old e-mails and long-forgotten digital documents.
And we know it”s the inside that matters most. Jesus condemned the Pharisees for mounting a righteous facade while their hearts were foul. Proverbs advises, “Above all else, guard your heart” (4:23).
David prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” And since that day God”s people have resonated with the challenge to live inside-out. We have no idea whether or not David kept a clear desk. But, at least for us who didn”t have to live with him, it really doesn”t matter.
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