Maturing Your Life Wardrobe
Recently, I went through my closet and got rid of some things I didn't want anymore. (Of course, this was after I went shopping and was given some new things to add to my wardrobe.) Going through my closet is something I do once or twice a year, and I usually get rid of things that 1) don't fit, 2) I don't like very much, or 3) don't flatter my body. This time, my criterion was maturity--I wanted to mature my wardrobe by getting rid of some things that didn't reflect my age and the season of life I'm in. Not that I can't have a childlike spirit, but I decided I didn't want to clothe myself like a child anymore.
So I got rid of things like: a shirt with Cinderella's face on it, a Hello Kitty sweater, some too-short, too-frilly dresses, some too-short, too-loud skirts, etc.
Like I said, it's okay to be little-girly sometimes and even to wear shirts with characters on them (I didn't mention that I kept one of my Cinderella shirts). I just wanted to get rid of the teenager-y stuff so I wouldn't be tempted to make those things my go-to items anymore. I'm basically forcing myself to try harder and to be classy by getting rid of my other options.
I started thinking about how maturing your wardrobe is a good analogy for other areas of life that need to be sorted through from time to time. For instance, you mature your wardrobe in the same way that you can mature your vocabulary, your music choices, your schedule, etc. If we examine the quality of our lives, we often see that, just like our wardrobes, most of the things there are good, we just need to weed out some things that are keeping our output value lower than it could be.
Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful" (John 15:1-2). Jesus wasn't referring to areas of his life that needed
to be pruned, but to people who claimed to be his followers who were not producing
fruit. Nonetheless, the concept stands. Like Jesus, we can ask God to help us cut off the
"branches" in our lives that aren't bearing fruit, or, just like I
"pruned" my wardrobe, to prune the branches in our lives that need to be more fruitful.
If you want to learn to speak more maturely and eloquently, you have to ban yourself from saying certain words or phrases. This can be difficult. Has anyone ever told you, "See how long you can go without saying the word 'like'"? It's excruciating. But purposeful people cut the colloquial use of that word out of their vocabulary all the time!
If you notice that your mind isn't producing good fruit, you have to cut out songs or TV shows that plant weeds in your mind. They decrease the value of your mind's output. They may not be "bad" songs or shows. My clothes weren't "bad"; they just didn't reflect the maturity I was striving for. Same with what we're putting into our minds. If it doesn't reflect the maturity or purity we are striving for, we should consider getting rid of it.
If you want to be able to accomplish more each day or fit new things into your schedule, you have to prioritize. You have to cut things out of your schedule that detract from the daily achievements you envision. For me, this is probably naps. I could probably cut down on those a little... Something I have been speaking over myself and my schedule this year is, "Your capacity for responsibility is expanding" (Jonathan Swindall). Ask God to help you accomplish more with your time! Still, we have to cut out things that mature time-management doesn't allow for.
The way we speak, the things we watch and listen to, and the ways we spend our time are all components of our "Life Wardrobe". How are we "clothing" ourselves?
Paul in Ephesians 4 encourages the believers in Ephesus to "attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, to mature manhood, to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that
we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every
wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful
schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up
in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" (13-15, ESV).
I often think back to Matthew 22, a passage about a king who holds a wedding banquet at his house. At the climax of the story, he admonishes one of his guests for not wearing the proper attire to the party. He says, "Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?" (11, NIV). As the Bride of Christ, we should ask Jesus to help us mature our Life Wardrobes--to prune some immature areas of our lives that aren't producing fruit--so that when we meet him for the heavenly wedding ceremony, we'll be clothed in the most beautiful, mature wedding clothes for him, our Groom.
We're all in this together! I pray the pruning process goes smoothly for you.
Love,
KK