Dealing with Drawers...

I tried tugging open the top drawer of my dresser this morning but it only opened an inch. I tugged some more. It cracked open another centimeter. I wasn't getting anywhere fast. I needed to put the laundry away and get my school underway. I yanked it again. A millimeter this time. "I really should clean this drawer out" I thought to myself. "Maybe I'll get to it later today." In reality I knew that wouldn't happen. At the moment though I really just wanted to get my laundry put away so I could get on with my day. I stuck my hand in and tried to jostle some of the clothes around that were causing the drawer to stubbornly stick, in hopes that it would miraculously open. When this failed I decided to go ahead and just roll my neatly folded clothes up and try to squeeze them into the drawer. Let me tell you something. Trying to cram more clothes into a drawer that you already can't open because it’s so full isn't exactly going to solve or help the problem. However, with much maneuvering I managed to get my clothes into the drawer. Now to try and close it all the way. I pushed it shut, only to find an overflowing sock was keeping it from shutting. I pushed on the sock and it went in further. I tried shutting the drawer again. It almost worked. I bent down to see what was stopping it this time, and discovered more sock was sticking out on the left side. With my finger I managed to push it in, then I lifted the drawer a little and by jiggling it slightly from left to right, it slowly went the rest of the way in. I sighed in relief. My mission was accomplished.

I don't think I'll ever get that drawer open again.

We all have those kinds of drawers in our lives. Whether it be the odds and ends drawer that we stick everything, that we don't know what to do with, in, or whether it be the drawer with all the papers you told yourself you’d like to look at later or the sock drawer with all the mismatched socks from the last 18 years of our life. None of us really want to look in the drawer. We'd rather just stuff things into it and then leave them there. Those drawers scare us. We're cowards. Truly we are.

So...you're probably wondering why I'm teling you about my stupid, sock drawer dilemma. I'll clear up your confusion....

Somehow that incident this morning reminded me of more than just the fact that I am being extremely slothful when it comes to taking care of that drawer. Habits that we act out in our daily lives also mimic the habits we can live out in our heart. Often times when God convicts me of something, instead of properly taking care of it, I’d rather just stick it in the miscellaneous drawer to deal with later. Every time I add something else to that “drawer” I find myself more and more miserable and every time it gets harder and harder to try and deal with the problem. The only way to solve the problem is to take the drawer the whole way out, dump everything over, expose and go through it, piece by piece, deciding what is worth keeping and what should be thrown. Only then can things be put back in an orderly fashion and only then will the drawer operate like it’s supposed to and close with ease. The problem is… going through the drawer takes time. It takes effort. It takes a willingness to get rid of things you really don’t need but that you’d like to hang on to anyways. So instead, we just keep cramming things into our “drawers” to deal with later and as long as we can get the drawer shut so that nobody sees the mess inside, we can go on about our day without anyone being the wiser. The problem is…eventually the drawer is going to have to be dealt with.

After all, I’m going to have some mighty cold feet tomorrow if I don’t figure out how to get my drawer open by then.

Chrystal