As vivid as if it happened just this morning, I remember, well over 55 years ago, when the monthly “cleaning lady Saturdays” dawned. Today, I laugh. Eons ago, neither my sister, JoJo, nor I were even cracking a smile. Let’s say the least, and merely state, my Mother was unique. Re-enacting the scene would sketch the picture of my Mother scurrying throughout the house dusting and sweeping while shouting instructions over the vacuum noise to JoJo and me. JoJo’s toilet duty had to make sure she scoured under the rim. My instructions were to take the burners off the stove, so I could both see and vanish every speck of grease. After all, we couldn’t have Mary, our cleaning lady, come into the house and judge us a “dirty” family. Our reputation would be ruined!!! Truth be told, if our monthly routine had been known, we would have been declared CRAZY!!!
So what has this reflection to do with anything??? My response is maybe more than we think, or so, it weighed in on today’s walk around the lake.
We, Christians, are created to be people dependent on God. Especially when life buries us in clutter, untidiness, and the grime of worldly existence, we are to put all in God’s hands and trust. A large percentage of the time, we mostly do this. However, a huge percentage of the time we fail to let go of, and step away from, what we place in God’s hands. We foolishly act as if we first need to clean up a mess before we completely turn it over to God’s spotless ability – flashback to my Mother’s summoning the troops to swab the deck in preparation for the clean-up crew’s arrival. As ludicrous as it was for my Mother to scrub before the cleaning lady’s arrival, it is even more absurd for us to think we must tidy up our messes before placing them in God’s cleansing palm. Seriously, if we wait till we’ve got it all under control to place our messes in God’s hands, then one likelihood will prevail. Our messes will never be gotten around, over or beyond. I’ll admit messes on our own are easy to make. However, more oft than not, God’s mercy, forgiveness and love are needed for our messy disarray to be renewed to the state of our lives’ messiness being straightened out.
How often do we overlook that no mess is too big for God to make clean? And no, we do not have to whitewash the dirt of our lives before sincerely, and remorsefully, asking God to purify our mess. We need to be sorry, not spic and span clean, when we ask God to renovate our messy today into His cleansing power for our tomorrow.
Biblically, I see Christ telling us not our cleaning, but our gleaning of His washing our sins away, is on what we need to focus. Let’s reflect on Jesus’s response to Martha when she asked Jesus to reproach Mary for seeking Him instead of helping her ready the table and food to be worthy of Christ’s presence. “But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her’.” Luke 10:41-42 (ESV) In other words, Martha had prioritized preparing the home to be worthy of Jesus. Mary chose to forego making things “good enough” for Jesus and instead sought to go as imperfect as she was to Jesus and let His words and wisdom transform her unworthiness into His divine bestowal of enlightened purification.
No matter how much we try and scrub clean our imperfections before opening the doors of our heart to God, only His loving power and forgiveness makes us worthy of being at home with God. Bottom line, we don’t have to (and in most cases can’t) clean-up our messes before we turn them over to God. However, what we need to do is turn them over to God with remorse and resolution not to repeat them. Equally important, let us not forget, while our hands can’t scrub away the sinful stains of our lives, they can, and should, fold in thankful prayer. For, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” 1John 1: (ESV)
Uplifted in a Broken Down World 