A Guy’s Organize-ometer

March 31, 2008

By Scott Harrup

Want to know a sure-fire way to gauge a guy’s ability to organize? Look in his garage.

If his family lives in a home with a two- or three-car garage, and those cars are camped on the driveway fading their paint and collecting hail dents, something is wrong with this picture.

I say that in the humble spirit of a recovering disorganize-aholic.

We’re able to drive our sedan and minivan into our garage, but there has been some serious competition in the past.

Our car took up temporary residence on the driveway for the months I was assembling our children’s backyard play set. When an early morning tornado warning promised hail last spring, you never saw a guy throw several hundred pounds of cedar into a pile so fast so he could half-park a car under the garage overhang while ice ricocheted off the trunk.

But things have changed. My garage looks more like a fire station these days than a lost and found center. Vehicles neatly parked. Plenty of surrounding floor space. All necessary equipment stowed and ready.

What happened?

My dad, the ultimate organized guy, stepped in with an offer to build me a wall of shelves. Shelves are great, but just the promise to help created an aura of organizing energy that began to shed gentle, but destructive beams on the black widows that had made their homes in the dust balls.

A promise of help, followed by a tangible demonstration of love, and things began to turn around in my overcrowded, oil-spotted concrete wasteland.

My life reflects that kind of transformation in a lot of ways. I’ve got dark corners of the soul populated with virtual black widows, crowded with my past mistakes and splotched with the oil stains of regret.

Then Someone lovingly offers to help me clean things up. And when He steps in, the changes are amazing.

“Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5, KJV).

— Scott Harrup is senior associate editor of Today’s Pentecostal Evangel and blogs at Out There (sharrup.agblogger.org).