I gave up my morning walk this morning in favor of spending the day cleaning the house. I’d rather walk. Even when it’s cold and snowy as it was this morning at my usual walk time. I do not enjoying cleaning. I do it because it’s necessary.
From an exercise standpoint the cleaning spree was similar to my 3-mile walk. A quick check of my Walk Tracker app shows nearly 6,400 steps. That’s fairly close to the same as my walk. There was definitely some cardio involved, and I worked up a sweat. Don’t worry, I’m not going to switch to that kind of daily exercise.
You know what else was the same? I let my thoughts go where they wanted in much the same way I do on my walks. The end result was that God doesn’t care if I’m walking or cleaning – He’ll trigger inspiration anywhere. Perhaps because my tasks changed, my thoughts did jump around.
Nerf darts. These are nearly as prolific in my house as Abraham’s descendants. It doesn’t matter how often any of us pick them up, there are always more nearly everywhere I look. They’re in every room. They’re under seemingly everything. When I’m sweeping, mopping and vacuuming there are always handfuls in the way. First, how is this possible?
As a friendly side note, don’t come to our house when the boys are home unless you are prepared to get shot. Or maybe come armed with your own Nerf gun. I get shot while fixing dinner, doing laundry, just passing through a room. I’ve also been caught in the crossfire more times than I can count.
As a result, I find these darts everywhere. I had already cleaned up several of them today when I found a couple more as I was sweeping in my dining room/office. I was just about to be annoyed with it when in a split second I thought, “God I’m thankful that you are as present in all parts of my life as Nerf darts are in my house.” I’m glad that I can find God around every corner, too. I was just overwhelmed by that thought in that moment. He’s everywhere, and I don’t have to look hard to find Him.
I decided before vacuuming my carpeted areas today that maybe it was time to sprinkle a little deodorizer on them first. This is a house of boys – you have to be diligent in waging battle on the smells. So I dug out a fresh container of carpet deodorizer and sprinkled it everywhere.
I checked the back of the box to see how long it was recommended to leave it before vacuuming. Fifteen minutes in most cases. You’re welcome. As I was skimming the box I noticed that it also said that it doesn’t remove stains. Well duh. But then that made me think about how we do similar things with sin in our lives. We cover up and dust over things to make them look or smell good. We try and mask it or distract from it. Real stains don’t go away that easy. We’re only covering a sin briefly.
Sometimes cleaning up our sinful messes takes some elbow grease. Jesus is a most excellent stain remover but not if we don’t ask Him for help. He’ll forgive us for spilling the Kool-Aid but we must stop deliberately pouring it on the floor. Cleaning up the mess of sin is often difficult and unpleasant but it’s important. We may get temporary satisfaction from something that eventually leads to all sorts of a mess. It’s not worth it. We can’t live our best life flirting with the messes.
As I was mopping the kitchen floor I came across one sticky spot of some kind that stubbornly didn’t want to come up. I went over it and over it and could not get it up. Then I changed the angle I was mopping it. I switched directions and began to make some headway. With a lot of scrubbing and the change of angle, I got it up.
I know – your first reaction is to wonder what in the world was so stuck on the floor. And to maybe question the frequency of my mopping. Listen, don’t focus too much on those silly details, focus on what’s really important here. Sometimes changing our perspective, direction or momentum can make all the difference.
Before we get too frustrated about something, maybe the right thing to do is approach it from a different angle. I find this works in all sorts of capacities – from cleaning to relating to other people. It’s easy to just look at things from one comfortable perspective, but there are high odds that we are all wrong sometimes. Maybe that person you disagree with is actually correct. Maybe I’m looking at something in a selfish light and really should try to see it more from someone else’s view.
I’m reminded of that quote that says, “If you always do what you’ve always done then you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” There’s a lot of truth in that. I’m absolutely not suggesting that we compromise our beliefs, but before we get upset because we can’t get through to that person or quit because the task just seems too difficult, let’s remember to try a different angle.
When I finished cleaning I needed a shower. That made me sigh about how quickly I was starting the process of undoing my cleaning. I couldn’t help but think how quickly my kids would destroy the relative clean. I mean let’s be real, this wasn’t a full deep-cleaning. This was a mom trying to keep her head above water cleaning. Ain’t nobody got time for windows and baseboards today.
The kids immediately seem to start snacking, tracking in dirt or leaves or whatever they find outside. And of course the toys will find their way back out to all the surfaces. I saw a meme on Facebook the other day that said something along the lines of “I don’t know why I clean the house because people still live here.”
House cleaning is very necessary to good health and, well, sanity in some cases. So is life cleaning. Sometimes we have to dust off multiple parts of our lives and we have to do it on the regular. Just because I went to church once, memorized a Bible verse or learned about something before doesn’t mean I get to stop. Just because I was successful at this or that once, doesn’t mean that will last a lifetime. Satan comes at us with darts everyday. Until God calls us home, we have to keep on top of our heart, mind and soul.
My house would be disgusting quickly if I didn’t clean it regularly. So would the rest of my life. If I don’t use my brain, it gets dusty. If I don’t use my heart, it gets dusty. If I don’t maintain my relationship with God, that gets dusty, too. And if I don’t do what He’s telling me to do, I make a mess.
Friends we can’t afford to wait until spring, go ahead and find something to clean today.
