Clean

5/9/2020

Clean

Well, it was a lot more obvious initially but this table was littered with fallen leaves and twigs from our trees and I cleaned off the side that I was using. 

This is quarantine time and we are all thinking a lot more and harder about our cleanliness, or at least we should be. Even those of us who were washing our hands before are now learning that we need to be washing our hands more and better. What we once thought was enough cleaning, we now know wasn't near enough. 

I mean, I was not counting to 20 when I washed my hands before. I was not washing my hands every time I came home from being out, and I wasn’t sanitizing my hands in my car in between my errand runs. Four months ago, doing such things would have seemed excessive. Now for me and my family and hopefully for everyone else, these things are standard.

This is how it is with so much of my life. I think I’m doing okay, but then I’ll hear a sermon, or go to a Bible study, or read a verse on my own, and I’ll learn that what I was doing was not enough, that God requires more from me, more of my time, my energy, my resources, my heart. I’ll learn that I was only cleaning half of the table, and I need to adjust my life and clean all of it. 

Like all of the adjustments that we are now having to make, initially, it will seem crazy and excessive, but ultimately, the adjustment was necessary, it was part of the refining fire that makes me shine brighter. 

May we all be open to the refining fire so that our hearts can be more pure.

Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” James 4: 8