Remember when you were young and your mom asked you to clean your room? To avoid the task, you would take all of the clothes and your other junk and shove them in the closet, hide them under the bed and put them anywhere else that wasn't readily apparent to the naked eye. Mom would come in and say, "Your room looks beautiful!" But you knew the truth. Sooner or later, Mom caught on and stuffing things in the closet just wouldn't do it. You REALLY had to clean your room.

Some of us, as adults, still have things in our closets. Some of these things are things we consciously stuffed in the closet and some of them we didn't realize were in there. Some of those things are hurts we don't want to remember or things in the past we would rather forget. Some of them are habits we know we should have gotten rid of long ago. And some of those items are blocking our way to God.

That's why we as Christians need to regularly go into our secret closet -- the secret place where you and the Lord rendezvous. It's only in that place where God will go into the closet of our lives and remove fear, doubt, unforgiveness, pain and unconfessed sin. But there's a prerequisite to God doing a "strip search" of the heart. You must ask Him to search your heart. You see, my God does not perform invasive surgical procedures of the heart without your permission. In order to enter into the cracks and the crevices, the nooks and the crannies of your heart, He must be invited.

But when you invite Him to search you, be prepared. It takes a strong Christian to ask God to search him. Many of us would rather continue believing that we have it all together. We would rather perpetuate the illusion that we've already arrived when it comes to being the perfect Christian. We don't want God to examine us. It's because we know when God searches, He finds. We know that He'll get into the areas of our lives we thought were OK. He'll start to tug and pull at some of those sensitive areas that we just don't want touched. He'll deal with the reason why you didn't forgive that person who betrayed you. He'll deal with those four-letter words that still rise up in you when someone cuts you off on the road. He'll deal with that lying tongue. He'll deal with the after effects of that parent who abused you. He'll deal with the secret sins that only you and He know about. Little by little, He'll start to point out the areas that need cleansing and purging.

We all know that's uncomfortable; we don't like it. But it's necessary for us to get to where God wants us to be. Although some discomfort is required, we can count on the fact that God isn't doing it to get His jollies. He doesn't do it to embarrass us or humiliate us. He does it to help us because of His great love for us.

When the Lord brings an issue to light in our lives, it's to help us deal with it -- and because He's ready to deal with it. He knows what's ahead in our lives. For instance, if He knows that your lack of faith is going to be a stumbling block for the places that He's going to take you to, He'll put you in a position where you'll have to rely on Him. He'll put your back up against the wall where it's only you and Him. He'll place you in a position where you'll learn that He is a rewarder of the faithful. Your faith won't be something that you just read in Hebrews 11; it will be a real life experience and without a doubt, you'll know God can be trusted. You see in the end, it's all about being more like Christ. It's about being a mirror image of His Son. Remember, the word "Christian" means "Christ-like." That should be the goal of the Christian life -- to become more like Christ.

I challenge you to speak the words of David who said, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Copyright 2001 Andrea R. Williams. All rights reserved.

Andrea R. Williams, the Project Coordinator with the Washington DC Chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc. (The GRAMMY Awards), is a singer and songwriter. In addition to being a writer for Gospelcity.com, she also is a writer for Charisma Magazine, Gospelflava Magazine and Gospel Synergy Magazine.