The Deceptiveness of Cabinetry

We’re moving. The truck shows up in 4 days. So, more technically, we’re packing. My wife has been working diligently on the kitchen this evening. After she quit and was getting ready for bed, I went walking toward the kitchen via the dining room aka the box staging area. There were several new kitchen related boxes that I nearly stumbled over. Rather than being frustrated that something was in the walkway, it was exciting because we were closer to being ready than the last time I walked through.

In the next step I was in the kitchen which looked exactly as it had hours before – clean and tidy, but not empty. Talk about deflation. That’s when I realized that cabinetry is deceptive. At least the doors are. Whether it is hiding your disorganized pots and pans, or it is failing to show the lack of the same, the doors on the cabinetry keep you from seeing what’s really going on.

I thought about the shells that we run around with in our lives and especially the ones we wear to church. Shells specially designed by years of trial and error to keep the world seeing the neat and tidy us and not showing the real state of our hearts at all. I thought of Jesus condemning the Pharisees for being like “whitewashed tombs” – pretty on the outside, but nasty on the inside (Matthew 23:27). Deceptive.

Our shells and cabinetry doors (during periods of moving) need to go.

NLT Matthew 23:27 "How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs-- beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity.