God speaks through dishes

Yeah - not just bushes, right?

And here I was, doing my 3rd too many dishloads on a dreary Spring winter storm day when I had decided that it was just not worth the risk to drive anywhere. I have sat here trying to think how much history to give and finally I just figured that this doesn't even just apply to right now. That it is something for my whole life - this moment and everything that came before and all that will pass.

Someone at a camping conference a long time ago asked when, as full-time camping ministry professionals, we feel we are the furthest from God? My answer is when you turn around and realize just how far you have strayed from him and how far you need to go to return. It would be like the Prodigal sitting, eating out of the pig's trough and wondering what paths he had taken to get to that point, knowing where home was, and knowing just how far he had actually gone. It always devastating realization to me.

Back to dishes...I suppose if God can speak through a burning bush - what's a stainless steel frying pan? I mean, really. So, there I was - staring at my frying pan - while He spoke to me. Like I said before, I had been washing dishes for a while when I got to my frying pan. It's been a good frying pan to me. I've been a responsible cook and never used metal on the Teflon and it really has held out very well these years. So from the top, the surface you actually do the cooking it - it looks brand new. Flip it over though, and the bottom has become darkly spotted and charred. So much for "stainless steel". Probably too many days of not being washed well enough combined with a gas stove that sears food and liquid to its bottom. I decided that today was the day that I was going to see just how much of that baked on crud I could get off. SOS pad in hand, I went at it - they don't call it elbow grease for nothing.

And that's when God said "this is what I'm doing to you right now. Your sin has been left unattended too long. Though you have come to me to clean your heart of much, some you have left in the dark, thinking that I have not noticed. But I see it all. And it's time to deal with it."

Geh. I stood there looking at my half scrubbed pan for a long while. I continued to scrub and was at it for a long time - all the while, the Holy Spirit going through all the things that I have not brought to God out of pride, or shame, or selfishness. And I know...I know! The purification process is not easy. Gold and silver get put through the fire so that impurities can get boiled to the top and scraped off.

The crud that gets baked on by the world needs to come off and everything that we don't give to God, needs to come off - and all of that sin that we've been hiding - it needs to go. But as I scrubbed the pan it got shinier (word??) and shinier. The crud and the spots were coming off - and I wanted to scrub harder. I loved seeing it come clean. By the time it was done, the pan almost looked like the pot that had come out of the box years ago. It wasn't perfect and would again need some attention in a couple places but it was looking close to new again.

I think like any housekeeping job, we don't like to do it. We don't like to confront the dirt and grim that gathers in the corners of our home. Sometimes we even like to blame others for our dirt (Koda's hairballs are more like monsters). But that dirt is still in my house and needs to be cleaned. If left, the dirt and mess can become like a mountain that can't be climbed. Too much, too big, and impossible to defeat.

The thing about cleaning though, it's like scrubbing that pot. It may suck to start but when you start seeing the results you want to keep cleaning. Why? You might be OCD or if you relate it to your spiritual life - it's because you're walking RIGHT relationship with God. See back at the beginning of this post when I said my response to when I feel furthest from God is when I turn around and realized how far I've actually strayed from God...I was wrong.

When you turn to face God - He's not far at all. He's right there with you because while you might have been straying away - He's been close. He's never left you.