Moving Pains

Moving can be such a pain. As a current renter it is one of the things that I dread about beginning the process of eventually buying a house. I have only had to move into two houses in my adult life and the inconvenience and stress of that has not made me eager to experience it all over again. Plus my wife and I own (outright! never debt here, but that is a different topic) two sedans, making the moving process even more of an exercise in relying on other people than it would be otherwise.

Obviously then it is not my moving "pain" that I am referencing. That pain is currently being felt by my friends Nate and Julie and by my best friend Matt. For those interested, this is the same Matt from my post "There's Just Something About a Truck". Nate, Julie, and Matt are all a part of the small group that I am a part of that has shared each other's lives for most of the past decade (cue the "I'm getting old" flashbacks here). Nate and Julie made a fantastic home purchase recently and have made their second move of the last twelve months. Helping them move into what is their very first "our home" has been wonderful.

Matt has a personal motive for helping them move into their home. He is sick of his apartment. I can't blame him. This place is tiny. How tiny? I am pretty sure that Clark Kent has knocked on his door a couple times because he thought someone was squatting in his changing room, that's how tiny. When Matt heard that Nate and Julie were moving out of their (rented and fully furnished) house, he took a liking to the idea of living there, since his lease was up at the end of the next month. Nate took a liking to Matt's liking since it is much easier to tell your landlord that you are breaking your lease when you can take the next sentence to tell him that you found him his next tenant.

So to recap: Nate and Julie bought a house, they must move out by the end of the month, Matt is moving into their old place, Matt must be moved out of his place at the end of the month, but N&J are not fully moved out yet. There are eleven days left before all of this moving has to be complete. Phew! even I was having trouble keeping it all straight.

Now, since they are both up against a deadline, Nate and Matt have become moving buddies. Matt has considerably more free time than Nate, so Nate gave him a key to both houses and said, "Go ahead and move anything that needs to be moved." What an act of trust and sign of reliability that is! Don't you wish you could be a part of a small group that waded through your life in this way?!

Where am I going with all of this? It strikes me that the kind of "do whatever you see fit" instructions that Nate gave to Matt is exactly what we are invited to experience in our friendship with Jesus. Nate has no clue what Matt is going to pack next, whether it belongs with whatever else is in that box, will it get broken, will it end up in the room Julie desires, etc. He is saying, "Matt, because of our experience together, I trust that you have my best interest in mind. I am giving you access to all that I own."

Based on what I have experienced with him, Jesus has my best interests at heart, but I still don't give him access to all that I have. Some days it feels like I give him the garage door code, but the door to the house is locked. Or I say, "Jesus, here is the key to the storage unit. I don't get into that all that often, so you won't negatively effect the way I regularly do things there." I don't want to live that way. I have shown just how royally I can screw up my life through my choices. For me, and for all of you, I want Jesus to have "Nate and Matt" kind of access to my life. I want to get to the point where he has access to everything. "Come in, and whatever you do I will adjust to it."

So, today I am giving my entire set of keys to Jesus. What access do you allow him to have?