Oh, Marie Kondo.
Has it really come to this? It takes us lounging on the sofa and watching a show on Netflix to motivate ourselves to get rid of junk that’s been piling up in our house? It takes you, a woman from the other side of the world, to appear on our TV screen and remind us that joy isn’t found in the material? I’m laughing at the irony of it. I’m mourning, because it is such a shallow fix.
We want peace and a lightened load, but only in the most humanistic ways. There must be tangible, guaranteed results if you expect me to hop on your bandwagon. Whole30? Crossfit? Minimalism? I’ll get on board with that—I’ve seen before and after pictures; Instagram doesn’t lie. I just want a change that makes me happy.
Marie Kondo, let me tell the time I lived in a one bedroom apartment with nothing but a used love seat and a lousy marriage. My husband didn’t bring me joy, should I have given him the boot? I was jobless and directionless. No one would hire me and I wallowed in self-pity: tell me how to tidy up that sort of mess. Is happiness found in a clutter-free life?
Jesus once met a woman a well in Samaria. This wasn’t a kosher thing to do, by the way. Jewish men especially weren’t supposed to talk to Samaritans of the female variety. They were both thirsty. Jesus asked her for a drink of water, as she had a bucket and He did not. She was suspicious—what Jewish man would drink from a Samaritan well? And then He said this:
“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
The woman was rightly confused. She didn’t see him looking straight at her heart, with all its messy closets and skeletons. She had come to the well for water, not for some esoteric conversation with a stranger. But the idea of living water piqued her interest. Was this guy a salesman? Did he have some fix-it-quick water solution to maker her life easier so she wouldn’t have keep making the daily jaunt to the well?
Jesus pointed at the well.
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
She felt her pockets, ready to pull out her wallet and buy what this guy was selling. I’ll pay anything if it makes my life a little easier, if it helps me get my crap together. Then He revealed to her what was in her heart.
“Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
Immediately, the woman realized this wasn’t a salesman, and He wasn’t selling drinking water. Jesus was tenderly exposing the larger mess in her life, the one where despair and hopelessness was piled up, wreaking havoc. He could see into her soul and it was unsettling. He must be a prophet, she thought. I better get this conversation back on track, prove that I’m not just a Samaritan whore.
I can relate to this attitude—just give me a second, Jesus, to put on my best face and pretend everything is ok. My marriage isn’t really on the rocks, my life isn’t totally falling apart. This is awkward! How does he know? Can I salvage the conversation where we were talking about water?
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus settled the question for her:
“A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
The woman probably shrugged, reached down to pick up her water pot and leave. An odd day, conversation, man at the well, nothing more.
“I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming,” she said. “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
The pot slipped out of her hands. Holy crap, who is this guy?
She ran back to the town where everyone already knew her history, shouting the news, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
In just a few minutes, he Marie Kondo’ed the junk in her soul, wiped her slate clean. Right there, she knew she could be forgiven, made whole, start fresh.
Isn’t that what we all are really looking for? Not a clean house, but a clean heart? For the Savior to notice us and come running to the rescue? Joy that bubbles out like streams of living water. Our eternal thirst, quenched.
John 4:39-42 says,
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the
woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them,
and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said;
now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior
of the world.”
Let me tell you what Jesus has done for me personally. He looked and saw the junk in my heart. All the times I thought I was right and wasn’t. All the lies I had ever told. All the lies I believed. The forgiveness I refused to offer. The hurt I dragged around like luggage.
And then He offered to sweep it clean. He filled up that empty heart with springs of living water.
Jesus changed everything.
Marie Kondo, it might be a joy like nothing you’ve ever experienced.
