We LOVE Our Disorders!

I read a blog called "unclutterer." It gives lots of useful tips to help live/work in a simple and organized fashion, plus it has unitasker Wednesdays which are usually hilarious!

Last week I ran across their blog entitled, "Hoarding Disorder: A new disorder in the draft of the DMS-V."

In the blog they talk about "hoarding" (you know having too much stuff, not being able to throw things away, being scared about not having enough, always needing to accumulate MORE) as a disorder closely related to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

It is my social commentary of western civilization in general and of Americans in particular that we ALL have this "disorder!"

The word "disorder" now-a-days usually denotes something that we get diagnosed as having by a Dr. or our shrink. Most often this diagnosis gets our hands on some medication that is to make us "better".

The word "disorder" used to be much more @ home in church. It used to be a theological word that described our tendency to live in a way that rejects God's good intentions and desire for us and all of creation. Part of God's redeeming work in Jesus was often described as "re-ordering our affections." That is to say that part of what God does in Jesus is to take that which is "disordered" and re-order it in such a way that when we see what God has done we say things like, "God saves!"

In this sense of the word I am really comfortable saying that hoarding is a disorder... just one example of the ways in which we are in need of God's saving work. My unquenchable desire for more stuff, my unreasonable fear that me and my family will not have "enough", the things I own that I will never use but can't seem to part w/... How exactly does God "re-order" these things?

The short answer is the Church! The group of people who get together and seek to live life simply and in the light of the fact that if God has not with held his own Son from us, how much more will he not fail to give us EVERYTHING we need! This is the story of Acts 4 and continues to be the story of God's work in the Church.

I wonder how your church community is helping to re-order your life into the likeness of Jesus. What are some ways in which your church helps you to not hoard, not fear scarcity, etc.?