Transparent

“Hold me up to the light can you see through?
....everything that you do...
Transparency.... I offer you
...when you hold me to the light, can you see through?”
--Lyrics to “Hold Me Up” by Andrew Carlton

I love hearing this song when it comes on the radio, but I’ve never really understood transparency until recently. I went to visit a friend, and she had a beautiful home. In her beautiful home was an amazing kitchen (and I LOVE a good kitchen). It had all the sleek appliances, and granite countertops, and big Ginzu knives (well, not really). But the thing that really blew my mind was that ALL of her cabinet doors had glass in them, like windows. Not just a few; not just the ones on the top, but ALL of them. And, when you looked inside those cabinets, EVERYTHING was lined up neatly. No jumbles of old Christmas glasses next to a casserole dish that never gets used. No stacks of margarine or Cool Whip tubs, no Big Gulp glasses. Just rows and stacks of perfectly matched glasses and dishes and pots and pans. Martha Stewart would have been proud (or maybe even jealous). “How can you do this?” I asked? Her reply stuck in my mind: “Before we remodeled the kitchen, I had solid wood doors on my cabinets. And behind those doors was the biggest mess you could ever imagine. When I finally cleaned it all out, I decided to make it transparent, so that I’d never let it get that way again.” Later, as I rehashed that conversation in my mind, I realized that those cabinets nicely defined the transparency that God wants in my life. I have these cabinet doors that shield all my “junk” that I don’t want others to see. In the part of me that I choose to make public, I look all nice and pretty and sleek and shiny (well, maybe not so sleek). But behind those cabinet doors? Ugh. Stuff is all shoved in and pushed back; broken and old and useless. And God is just itching to remodel, if I’ll just let Him. The thing is, my friend didn’t put those pretty glass doors on until she’d already thrown out all the old junk. God, on the other hand, wants people to be able to see His work in progress, so sometimes, the junk has to show. And as, ever so slowly, the old and ugly and broken is replaced with things of real value, His light can shine out, and my transparent life becomes a thing of beauty. And Lord willing, when I remember what used to lurk behind those solid doors, I’ll never let it get that way again.

Ephesians 5:8-9
8 For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— 9 for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.