How I finally understood the beautiful gift of redemption during a closet overhaul!
I had the dreaded task this weekend of cleaning out my closet. It was time to sort through those pants worn past their prime, bag up those awkwardly fitting dresses, donate those still tagged ruffled blouses that were trending five years ago and make a fresh start. Of all my household chores this is the one that I hold off on the longest. Making the decision of what should stay and what should go, always proves to be difficult.
One by one, I pull garments off their hangars. I put some on for the last time trying to justify keeping it a while longer. In the end it’s tossed into the donation bag, our time together is over. These items are no longer serving me and it must be done.
Imagine with me for a moment, that I’m standing in the closet surrounded by my bulging bags of misfit clothes. In walks my husband with an exquisitely wrapped gift. He knows how my heart skips a beat for a new outfit and with excitement I tear open the package. It’s perfect! A navy blue classically tailored dress, an instant favorite. I dive further into the box and pull out matching shoes and a handbag, I’m in love! I try it all on and the fit is spot on, he knows me so well. I feel like a million bucks. Stay with me … we’re imagining!
I then do the unexpected. I take off the dress, remove the heels and place them all neatly back into the box. I hand it reluctantly back to my bewildered husband. He watches as I methodically begin to retrieve my old and worn clothing from the trash bags and hang them back up in my closet. I reject his beautiful new clothes that he has freely offered and return to my filthy rags.
You may be shouting, “Take the gift!”. You may be completely baffled, “Who would return to their old worn out clothes, when presented with something so perfect?”
Yet, you and I are guilty of this very thing. We do this every time we reject the freedom that the Lord offers to us, in exchange for our old habits, our deepest darkest doubts, or our life lived out in fear and ill-fitting desires. We take the free gift that is for you and for me, and we hand it back to the Lord and tell Him we want to wallow a little longer in our duty-filled, worn out clothes.
Sometimes, it is not even the unwanted clothes from our own closet that we resign to wear yet again. There have been many times, we have allowed others to dress us. They tell us what we need to wear, what is acceptable and what is not. Often what they have dressed us in, does not fit us properly and is clearly not our style, but we wear it nonetheless. All the while, our Lord is standing there patiently with His magnificent robes of righteousness gently asking you and me to wear them. We refuse His gift.
From the beginning of time in the garden, when God so graciously made coverings for Adam and Eve, clothing has been intertwined with our identity. We are free to choose the garments we place on our body. Whether they be clothes of our own making, what others would have us wear, or the beautiful robes of righteousness that Christ desires to clothe us with, we are all free to choose.
There is a beautiful thing about this word: FREE. The very root of it means dear or beloved. Free has never meant to live out our life without a care or thought of another, to be wild and without constraint. This definition of free is impossible. We will always live our lives in connection with others and freedom will always come with a playbook. The question is, whose freedom will you choose? Which clothes will you choose to wear? At the end of the day, we all need to be clothed.
The freedom that Christ offers to us, came with a price tag. The clothes of righteousness that He gives us to wear, cost Him everything. He willingly paid the price. The very root of this freedom is a love so deep that we will never fully understand. He tells us to put away our ill fitting clothes once and for all, to cast off the garments that others burden us with and take His yoke upon our weary shoulders. This yoke is easy and the burden is light for He has designed it specifically for you and for me. He desires us to bag up the items in our life that are no longer serving us and to trust Him completely with open hands and a free heart.
Oh, how beautiful and beyond compare are the riches that we have in Christ Jesus! It is time to live out this freedom, to live FREE and LARGE, to accept the gift and to wear it with humble confidence. It is time to FLOURISH for our Lord, our great and mighty designer!
