Join the Junk Drawer

Confession: I force myself to go to church these days.

I don’t want to go.

I could easily become one of the increasing numbers of people who choose to stay home on Sunday morning and watch _____(pick your favorite TV evangelist) while lounging in their pjs. But I don’t.  I keep forcing myself to get up, get ready, get in the car, and get through the front doors to worship with the crowd in real-time. 

I have heard all the reasons people offer as to why they don’t go to church – the place is filled with hypocrites. . .the teaching isn’t relevant. . .the music is too loud/too much/too outdated. . .I’m exhausted from working all week and need a day to myself. . .my kids have sporting events on that day.

While I could easily choose one of these, the real reason why I don’t want to go is because I don’t belong there. 

But then, nobody does.

In almost every home, there is a junk drawer.  It is a catch-all of useless, discarded, and broken crap.  The only thing that these items have in common is that someone deemed the item worth saving, even if the reason is unknown. 

Although it might sound sacrilegious, church is a giant junk drawer.  In spite of the best efforts of some to camouflage this fact, we are all broken pieces, who are currently, in this time and in this place, residing in the drawer together. And like the items in the junk drawer, Someone decided a long time ago that we were worth saving. 

For some, brokenness is physical – an illness or a disease.  For others, it is mental – depression or grief.  For still others, there is social, financial, or spiritual brokenness.  For most, it is a combination of factors. The bottom line is that brokenness is brokenness, and to the one who suffers, it is the worst thing in the world.

That’s true for me as well. My life is a total mess right now.  I’m not ready to get into specifics, but suffice it to say that just when I think it couldn’t get any worse, it does. . .over and over.  Although it is difficult, I clutch my broken pieces and cling to God through the Bible and prayer. 

Church is the last place I want to be, largely because of shame, disappointment, and guilt. Even if I have done a good job of trying to fill the cracks and polish the scuffmarks, people aren’t stupid.  They see; they know. 

But church is the only place I can be, solely because there is nowhere else to go.   

And although it is difficult for me grasp, if I feel this way, I know there are others just like me. 

Church is a place where the junk drawer is emptied. The useless, discarded, and broken pieces discover that they are not alone. While only God can restore, repair, and re-construct the pieces – to make them whole or the creation He intended them to be, it is enough to know that there are others like us.  And while we wait for the Creator to finish His masterpiece, church is a place where junk drawer inhabitants can support and encourage each other until healing and restoration is complete.

And that is why I force myself to go to church. 

Once I’m there, I understand that I am not alone in the junk drawer.   I really do belong, and it gives me a tender heart for the broken pieces that are currently outside the drawer.  Alone.  Feeling discouraged.  Without hope.  There is plenty of room in the drawer; it is up to me to keep my eyes open for cracks and scuffmarks.