Spot Cleaning
I have a confession to make: I am not a great housekeeper. I’m a single and full time working mom, so the time I have leftover to spend on house cleaning is minimal and I don’t enjoy the work. In fact, Disaster Responder is the term that best fits my housecleaning style. In other words, I focus my attention on the eye sore whether it be cleaning the spilled ketchup on the floor, the coffee filter full of grinds, or sorting through the mile high pile of junk mail. When life gets busy, I content myself with spot cleaning and if I happen to have house guests, I’m crossing my fingers for blind ones-lol!
All joking aside, is spot cleaning enough? Despite my struggles with housekeeping, I challenged myself to a deep clean of my entire house in preparation for the school year. This included crawling on my hands and knees on the floor and wiping my baseboards with a solution of bleach and water. It had been three years since I attempted such a thing and I was both humbled and stunned by the progress I made. A layer of dust and dirt covered every baseboard and as I bleach cleaned each strip of paneling, I could not believe the beauty of the wood underneath the dust. Once I saw what color the baseboards were supposed to be, I realized I could not stop there. The walls were also covered in years worth of hand grease and smudges from a busy house with children and dogs. I began to wipe and scrub the walls. After two rooms down, something heavy in my heart lifted. The house felt less oppressive and I felt like I could finally breathe. I realized in that moment, that spot cleaning was not enough. The revelation hit me that often the dirtiest things in our lives are not obvious.
Spiritually speaking we can also be spot cleaners. We tend to focus on the obvious sins that make us look bad in the eyes of others, yet we avert our eyes from the dusty cracks and corners—the dirt more subtle to the naked eye. As Christians we claim to bring God into our lives, into our spiritual homes. We desire God to live inside of us. But, when we only focus on our spiritual disasters as they come and go, we can miss the chance to fully live in the presence of God. We play a game of hoping God will be pleased with the decorative table cloth and the clean carpets but distracted from seeing the cobwebs on the ceiling and the dust coating the baseboards. We attempt to fool both God and ourselves even as we’re breathing dusty, recycled air. Jesus is well aware of our human tendency. In Matthew 23:26, he scolded the Pharisees for their hypocrisy. “Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” God knows us and we can hide nothing from him. The Pharisees were more concerned about the outward appearances of spiritually and yet not focused at all on true spiritual cleanliness. If given a choice between a dirty cup on the outside or inside, I would certainly choose a cup that was clean on the inside. I wouldn’t want a guest getting sick from contaminated water. But for some, the look of cleanliness is more important than the reality of it even at the expense of others.
Does God expect our spiritual houses to be spotless? I certainly hope not, because if that’s the case I’m doomed. We are sinful creatures and we will never be spiritually perfect. Biblically speaking, God does not want us striving for moral perfection. The Bible is clear on this especially in the Apostle Paul’s letters. We do not earn our way to heaven through our moral superiority. We are part of the Kingdom of God because God has invited us as guests. We are covered by grace. What does God want from his guests? He wants us to strive for a full relationship with him. A full relationship means no more hiding, no more pretending. We respect God enough to know we cannot fool him, but what we can be is committed and honest. This is what God wants from us: our hearts. “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” I don’t know about y’all, but if someone knocks on the door at my house when I’m not expecting them and my house is a disaster zone, I don’t open the door. What I usually do is turn off all the lights, tell everyone to be quiet, and hide in the hopes that the unexpected visitor goes away.
When God is the guest in my house, I should clean my house. This is not because I’m pretending to be perfect, but I want God to be comfortable in my home. I don’t want him to find questionable yellow stains on the porcelain toilet seat. I want to open the doors wide—to treat my honored guest with the respect they deserve in order to enrich our relationship and friendship. I know that even if my house were a mess, God would still love me, but I am also motivated by love to make the most of my humble house.
More than once in my life, I have had the luxury of buying a car completely new off the lot. I don’t care if the car is a KIA Rio or a Tesla, there is something amazing about sitting in a brand new car with pristine seats and car mats that are so clean you could eat off of them. With children and pets, it will only be a matter of weeks before there are skittles lying along side wilted French fries in the cracks of the seat and dirt smudges all over the car door. No matter how I clean, the car will never look factory clean again or have that wonderful new car smell. There will always be a part of me longing for a cleanliness that can never be obtained and this is a part of God’s greatest promise to those who believe in him. In Revelations, God says, “Behold, I make all things new.” In the full passage of chapter 21, God’s people are promised a new heaven and a new earth. We are assured that in Christ Jesus, all will be made new and remain new. Believing in Christ is living in anticipation of all that he will make new and we are fortunate to witness the beginnings of that transformative work in the here and now. There is no other place I’d rather be.
