Winter Cleaning

Instead of enjoying a long 3 day weekend, I decided to be productive and clean my house in irvine. I had goals to clean up my entire room, vacuum it and the stairs, clean the sinks and shower, clean up downstairs, and most importantly clean under the stairs.

If you've been to 17 Ash Tree Ln. you know how dirty it is under the stairs. It's because the front door opens right to the stairs so a lot of dust just collects under the stairs. So while I was cleaning I had this epiphany. What I really love is experiencing or learning something new about God in really ordinary routine things. God is in everyday experiences that everyone has and will experience, just by living their lives. It reminds me of this one book I remember I came across, God is in the Small Things. (I have never read it though).

So what I came across was this, that as I am on my knees using paper towels and a bottle of Clorox to wipe down under the stairs, I cannot feel anything but extreme levels of disgust. "Yo, this is freakin' gross." White paper towels turn black in one wipe with a bunch of furry gunk. I pile up all of the dirt into one small area and right in the middle is a penny. At first I thought that it was way too dirty to even have worth, but then I realized with today's economy, every cent counts. Maybe this penny will go towards the Kingdom of God somehow. Anyways, this is where I realized even a possibility of a holy God to be in front of such dirty sin. How disgusted would He feel, how uncomfortable would it be. My simple task of wiping dirt already gets me to say, "Yo, I ain't down for this mess." But it is partially MY mess. So then what does the holy God do? He cleans the mess up, as disgusted as He is. He humbles himself and does it with the right heart. So many times I would come back to a completely messed up room after I cleaned it up realizing that I need to pick up after people again and think, "WHAT THE FREAK!? ARE YOU SERIOUS? THIS AIN'T MY MESS MAN." It was never His mess to begin with. It was always ours, yet He did it ALL and we contributed nothing.

Every now and then I am reminded that when we say, "Jesus died on the cross for everyone's sin, even mine," we must not overlook the faces in the crowd that were mocking Him, condemning Him, shouting, "Crucify, Crucify Him!" For those are OUR faces. Yes it was 33 AD, yes it was the Jews of the time in Israel, and yes you weren't there yet, BUT you and I put Him there. Get your act together and let Him clean your life up, cuz this mess is spiritual, its far bigger and deeper than you think, truthfully it's like you're bringing a toothbrush to a landfill. Wrap your mind around that!