An Avalanche in the Closet

I remember one time when a committee came to my house after their meeting to meet with me. The senior pastor had just resigned at the church where I was at and there was a lot to do and to think about. One of the things that they were dealing with was that the senior pastor had told me one thing about advocating for my salary package, and he had told the people at the church something else. And like a loyal employee I had kept my mouth shut about things. With the senior pastor's departure, I decided to stand up for myself a little more and tell the bigger story. Namely, that I had been given a different salary package when I accepted the position than when I arrived at the church, and that the pastor had promised to advocate for a salary increase (I was making under 20 a year w/salary and housing allowance) but he had not.

Before they had come over, I did everything I could to clean house like a crazy man. That included taking a number of things and putting them in the closet, and then arranging chair in the room where we could all talk.

I thought I had removed my mess from visibility and notice.

Soon all the men came in the room and we began the conversation, which was a pleasant conversation. We talked about a number of things, and got issues resolved.

As the conversation began there were a few noises in my closet, but they easily could be shrugged off. As the conversation went on for about 20 minutes the noises became more noticable. All of the sudden, it sounded like an avalanche was happening behind one of my guests. His eyes got big and he scooted his chair forward. I explained how the noise came about, and we all had a good laugh.

I think a lot of times we try to clean up the mess in our lives like I tried to clean the mess in my spare bedroom. A lot of times, we can just hide the mess in our lives in a back corner somewhere and nobody will notice. We cannot. Sooner or later, our mess is apparent to everyone who is around us. And the real work of cleaning house begins.