whatever the mess you are.... (Part I)

I was just chilling out with God, reflecting on something He did to me this evening when He told me to go clean the bathroom. This may seem odd, but to me, it isn't. I have asked God to help me love people over and over and over and over I have declined this urge to clean this bathroom. It's not even that I hate cleaning, it's just that I don't want to DO it. I don't want to stop what I'm doing now, to go do that. I'lldo it later. But I don't.

This time, I knew I needed to do it. And as it turns out, I learned more about God and how he works (and how I don't let him work in me sometimes) during that one hour than in a long time. I learned that cleaning is like a spiritual discipline for me, and that it's like "spiritual breathing". If you clean as you go (with my room, put things away right away instead of tossing them on the floor, or clean the bathroom every few days) then it doesn't end up being this big disgusting, horrific, time-consuming thing that you begin to dread and put off because you don't have the time to do it anyways, and then it becomes this thing that you know needs to be done but wouldn't even know where to start and that, too, makes you feel anxious, and then you don't do it and then you feel guilty. This is inside my world. This is what has been happening to me all year, all the four years of my university career. With my friendships, with my physical spaces, with my school work, in my spiritual life as well.

So many times I had the urge to just do the minimum. As I was cleaning I wanted to 'act in faith' that it was clean - I had just been wiping and scrubbing it with the cleaner. But there was this one stain on the sink. I wanted to just let it be - say it was clean. But these verses were coming to mind as I was cleaning. "Cleanse me with hyssop". So I asked myself, if this were sin in someone else, would you just let them leave it? No, I wouldn't. Did Jesus come to on the horrific, excruciating cross for the easy-to-clean sins but not others? No, his blood cleanses us of ALL unrighteousness. I learned about how I hold on to my sin and my stains and don't even realize it, in my procrastination. I wanted so badly to not scrub to remove that sin. I wanted the cleaning to be OVER. NOW. But Christ, who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. I was determined, then, to get the stain out. To convey the message to my housemate that I care enough in my heart to scrub against my will. I needed to try to be like Jesus and get that stain out.