Wallpaper Part II

Some sayings in life are really true: it's easier to prevent a mess rather than clean it up. And not all messes are able to be cleaned up.

As I was laboring to really remove the ugly wallpaper from our bathroom wall, I realized that messes made are much harder to clean up than if we had never made a mess at all.

We all have been in a mess we've created or someone else has created. It always seem to take less effort to make the mess and a whole lot of time to clean it up.

Interestingly enough, if I am in an emotional upheaval of some sort, I can't seem to function very well until it's resolved. I didn't see that having this wallpaper project lingering in my life was a lot like having a mess in my emotional life. It was hard to function. Granted, this was much easier to resolve and having closure was within a few days. But it felt like if things weren't quite right and when I completed the project, I felt normal again.

It did make me think though of those situations that never get resolved and those messes that take years to clean up.

I heard a preacher talk a couple of Sundays ago about how when Moses' people were complaining, God sent snakes into the camp to bite them. And people died. But then they repented and God told Moses to make a snake on a staff for the people to look at when they got bit. And if they did...they lived. The preacher had really good points. What stood out to me was that God didn't remove the snakes from the camp, instead, He made them have faith to simply look at a snake to be saved from death. And of course we know that when God sent Jesus, we look to Him to be saved and you can actually read a whole lot more about that in the Bible.

I'm getting to the point. Sometimes, we think that if our life is going to be really good, that bad thing or that bad whatever needs to be removed from our life in order for us to enjoy it. But the truth is, sometimes, God leaves that situation "as is" with one exception, He asks us to look upon Him.

So maybe there are some messes that will get cleaned up and resolved and others, we learn to live with and look upon Him Who can save us. It's not even about getting that situation made right. It's more about the fact that we are being taught to look upon Him. Are we willing to look upon Him when snakes are still in our camp?