Tuesday, August 24, 2010

How cleaning a nasty aparment reminded me of Jesus...

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Corinthians 6:11

Last Tuesday we moved into our new apartment. The first time we saw the apartment it smelled like dog poop, the bathtub was covered with dirt and stains, the toilet was green, and the kitchen floor was brown(it is linoleum floor that is supposed to be off white with a little squiggly line 1970's design in it). This was almost enough for us to say no thanks, however we kept looking at it. We were looking at two different apartments and weren't sure how we would decide between the two. Well, it turned out that the other one was given to someone else. So in a way this apartment chose us :)

We got the key to the apartment and started cleaning as soon as we could. At first, I just felt disgusted and wondered if I would ever dare to take my shoes off in this place. (those of you who know my Mom, know that she is a bit of a clean freak. I am no where close to her level, but she has worn off a little on me.) I worked and worked on the toilet and bathtub. I got the toilet looking good, but could not get the bathtub clean. I gave up after a while. (Luckily Jordan Tardy came over and cleaned it until it shined!)

I decided to move on to the kitchen floor. I swept a few times and then began the first of many moppings. The water had to be changed every few feet and I kept wondering who lets a place get this bad and why. As I mopped something crazy began to happen in my heart. I started to fall in love with this kitchen and this house. I wanted so badly for it to be clean and different than it was when we found it. Then I began to be reminded of how we all come to Jesus like this; nasty, dirty, and smelly and we need someone to clean us. We have no idea how dirty we are and we have no idea how to clean ourselves. I never really understand why God loves us or cleans us when we are so nasty...but then I thought about this apartment and how I cleaned it because it was mine and as I cleaned it my love for it grew. I think God is like that, because we are his he cleans us of our nastiness and he loves us with a great love. This love is so great, he sent Jesus to be the one to ultimately cleanse us for good!

If some of you came to visit our apartment(esp my Mom) you could probably still find a lot of areas that need more cleaning and might even say it is not that great of a place.(still has a dog odor because our neighbor has TONS of dogs). BUT, I know what is was before it was cleaned, I know how far it has come and that is a LONG way. If we could see people the way God sees them/us, how dirty they/we are before being cleaned and how far they/we have come as far as cleansing, we might have a lot more grace and love for one another.

These are just some random thoughts about a nasty apartment, hopefully you didn't get bored in this extremely long post. I just wanted to share and I am so thankful that my disgust for a nasty apartment began to remind me of Jesus' love for me/us and how wonderfully he has cleansed me/us.

4 comments:

  1. Love that you can find a way to apply this to Jesus and what he has done for us! I really really liked this post! Love you fily mou!

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  2. Kristin, that was awesome! We also had to MAJORLY clean our apartment when we first moved in. I had some of the exact initial thoughts, like will I ever walk in this house barefoot or prepare food in my kitchen.... Thanks for the reminder, I really relate, and you have a gift for writing!

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