Something shifts the moment we invite a new person into our home. Suddenly, it’s as if we look around and see our space through different eyes. We look around us to see the view that others will see. The clutter and the dirt we’ve ignored. The broken handle or torn curtain that we work around every day suddenly has a voice that screams, ‘fix me!’ Toys and games are still out and about, and our shoes are piled up in a gnarly mess by the door!

Perhaps we don’t invite people over because we don’t have the time or energy to create that perfect living space we always dreamed of living in. We want to keep up the illusion that we have tried to create. But, what if we invited them into our mess? What if we are willing to admit that we are juggling a lot and can’t always keep up with the Joneses?

Do we ever treat God like that? Doing all that we can do without asking Him to be part it? Considering our hearts to be too messy, too broken to open the door for Him to come in and sit with us in our mess? Here is the beautiful thing about our Heavenly Father. While He is perfect, He knows that we are not. Nothing delights God more than when we throw open the door and windows of our heart and soul and invite Him to come in just as we are! Revelation 3:20 (NLT) tells us, “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear My voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.” You know what I’ve discovered? The more time the Lord and I spend together the less important cleaning up the mess becomes to me. In fact, we can’t clean ourselves up enough to be worthy of the presence of God. JESUS makes us clean by His blood, His sacrifice on the cross. He’s waiting for us to invite Him into today’s mess. Let’s open the door!