Cleansed

I spent several hours scrubbing my kitchen floor the other day.  It is one of those mottled finishes that hides dirt really well.  I chose it for that purpose, but I never intended for dirt to become so ground in that it would take such an amount of time to clean. You know, I sweep that floor every day, sometimes multiple times a day.   I damp mop it often, so it looks shiny, it feels clean, but deep down, in the crevices it had an accumulation of ground in dirt.  No one noticed how ingrained the dirt had become except me and I kept avoiding dealing with it because I knew what it would take to get it clean.  Well I could ignore it no longer and finally tackled the job.  I needed to use strong cleaning solvents.  I needed to soak the floor to loosen up the dirt.   I needed to use a scrub brush and do the entire floor on my hands and knees.  Then it needed rinsing, re-washing and some finishing wax applied to seal and protect it.    How like my soul.   I can read my Bible daily.   I can confess and tackle sin in my life regularly, but sin and its effects will still pile up if I am not totally rigorous in the process.  The accumulation of sin eventually clouds my spiritual beauty.  It casts a haze over what ever spiritual fruit I do produce.  I need to deal with the deeply imbedded sin and then doubly protect myself from falling into those patterns again.  God’s help is totally required in this process.  He is the cleaning agent, He is the scrub brush, He is the finish and protector that guards my soul.  I must simply invite Him in and work with him to have the desired purification.

Psalm 51:7  Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.