As I pushed that vacuum around the floor with no music playing, no little feet getting in my way, and only one Lego to bend over and pick up, I started THINKING.
There I was sucking up dust and hair and grass and the tiniest pieces of garbage that are basically invisible. Eventually all that junk will be enough to fill up the entire vacuum bag. We take that bag and throw it into the trash can to be hauled far away. If I'm honest, I don't check that bag as often as I should. I usually check the bag ONLY when the vacuum isn't sucking like it should or when the red indication bar can't get pushed out any further.
I usually only check the vacuum bag when there's an unavoidable problem.
There wasn't a problem today. The vacuum worked fine, my floor is clean, and I enjoyed the fifteen minutes or so that it took me to get the job done.
Today my vacuum cleaner taught me something...
It caused me to ask myself this question: How much little, tiny, practically invisible garbage am I sucking up each day?
I am CONSTANTLY sucking up stuff and shoving it deep inside, into the vacuum bag of my soul. And just like my actual vacuum bag, I don't check the bag of my soul all that often.
As I thought about all of the junk that I shove into the vacuum bag of my soul, I realized something else...
We don't have to wait until the bag is full to deal with it. In fact, we SHOULDN'T wait for it to be full or for an unavoidable problem to force us to figure out what's going on.
Vacuuming is a very necessary chore. We want our floors to be clean.
Do you know what else I want?
I want my soul to be clean. I know that I'm going to be sucking stuff up and shoving it deep inside but I don't want to leave it there for later.
What if we took those harsh words and that pain and that fleeting thought and that worry and that selfish desire and consciously dealt with them immediately?
What if we DIDN'T wait for the bag to be full?
What if we APPLIED Scriptures like Hebrews 3?
"Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today', that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end." Hebrews 3:12-14
Hebrews 3 begins with the words, "Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him..."
What would it look like if went through our days considering Jesus?
One thing is for sure, we'll have to KNOW Jesus in order to consider Him. As we truly know Him, I think considering Him will become natural.
At the beginning of the year, I chose GATHER as my "word"...One of my focuses has been gathering myself around God's Word and gathering for myself an increasing knowledge of God.
I want to KNOW God as He really is and I've seen that I must go to His Word in order to LOOK for Him there. His Word is all about who He is and as I know Him I am confident that I WILL consider Him.
May we NOT wait. May we make a study of His Word and watch as our delight and obedience and considering increase because we have come to KNOW Him!
May even our vacuums remind us to CONSIDER Jesus!
May the vacuum bags of our souls not be neglected but checked and emptied and cleaned often by the very hope that is ours in this Jesus.
Unlike my vacuum, my very own soul adds plenty of its own garbage to the bag of trash...I cannot afford to let a single DAY go by without reminding it of my calling and emptying it of the ick that it clings to.
Ladies, we have some cleaning to do!
again...wow.
ReplyDeleteso. much. truth.
i often suck up garbage into my soul and fail to check in and see how it is doing until it is overflowing.
definitely not a good quality and one that needs to be changed.
thank you for being so honest, and for seeing God in the small and telling us about it!