Spring Cleaning - Are you ready?
I am an accompanist for three school choirs. Last week was their spring break and so since I didn’t have any rehearsals, my plan was to really give the house a “good shake down” as they would say in Iran. If you want to know more about spring cleaning traditions in our countries, be sure and check out my blogpost - “Are You A Spring Cleaner”?
The week started out and I was pretty productive. I got my kitchen clean and the floors and appliances looked shiny, squeaky clean. This took me two days! I cleaned out the refrigerator, freezer and pantry. I checked the dates on everything and threw out what had expired. Do you think that Catalina Dressing that expired in November of 2020 would still be good?
Then on Thursday morning, I was about to wash dishing and I waited and waited…no hot water! I yelled for my husband and he discovered that our water heater decided to retire. Water began draining everywhere in our garage where the water heater is located. Unfortunately, our master closet shares the same wall with the garage…the same corner as the water heater. My husband went into our closet to make sure that things were okay and the carpet in the closet was soaked…sopping wet!
Confession Time!
I’m going to be honest; this completely depressed me. My inspiration to have a clean house by the end of the week flew out the door. We had to move everything that was touching the floor out of the closet and into our bedroom. My husband used our steamer to get the water up (that water was so nasty). We then turned on a fan to dry it out. This took 3 days before the carpet was actually dry. It also smelled terrible. Even with bad allergies, I decided that we needed to open the windows to let things air out.
So here it is a week later and I still have the clothes on the floor of our bedroom. I’ve not done the laundry in a week (I’m running out of underwear) and frankly…I can’t seem to get motivated again.
Sometimes Things Just Do Not Go Our Way!
My pastor on Sunday talked about how most of us want a clean house so that if unexpected guests show up at our front door we are not embarrassed to invite them in. Let me tell you that I would be sooo embarrassed if you were to come knocking on my door!
Did I tell you about our bathroom upstairs? I want bore you with the details but we had to remove the flooring two weeks ago and lay tile down (which I am so happy about that part). My husband and a great friend of ours; did this themselves. The only problem was that we had to rely on when our friend had time from work to come and work on the flooring in our bathroom.
We also got a new toilet…Yeah! (Our house is 20 years old and it was time!) This project has taken two weeks and it still looks unfinished because there are tools everywhere, the doors haven’t been put back on and the toilet (although it’s in place) is not hooked up.
Spring Cleaning…Are You Kidding?
Now I find myself trying to write a devotional on “Spring Cleaning” and if you were to knock on my front door and I invited you in, you would see in the corner of the entryway the cardboard box that the toilet came in, a roll of fabric that I plan to make a slipcover for a loveseat and a file box of Home Owners Association papers that my husband needs to look through.
Not a welcoming site…plus I wouldn’t even let you go upstairs! My house is definitely not very inviting.
I let all this chaos ruin my inspiration to clean my house and work on devotionals for my Bible Journaling series “Spring Cleaning For The Soul”. Not only that; it has really put me in a slump! I’m just not motivated to do anything except play games on my iPad and take long naps! I allowed Satan to steal my joy!
Psalm 51:10
I confess all these things to you because I just can’t seem to get started on the study for Bible journaling “Spring Cleaning for the Soul” because mine (my house and my soul) is so dirty!
I’ve started in one direction with the first devotional and decided it wasn’t right. So I went into a completely different direction and still…it didn’t feel like the direction that the Lord wanted me to go in.
The Lord kept telling me “Psalm 51:10” but that just wasn’t where “I” wanted to start. I finally gave into what the Lord and allowed Him to use me and I began working on Psalm 51:10:
“Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.”
Isn’t the heart the best place to start for “Spring Cleaning For The Soul”. I need to ask God to cleanse me and renew my spirit because right now…it’s pretty low. I’ve totally let outside influences drag down my spirit instead of trusting in the Lord and asking Him to “renew a right spirit within me”.
Spring Cleaning Our Heart
Spring cleaning our heart is just like spring cleaning our home. We need to:
Gather our cleaning supplies - Thank goodness instead of a ton of different cleaning products, all you need is a Bible.
Declutter our closets - we need to empty out our spiritual closets of things that are no longer needed in our lives like: grudges, envy, fear and unforgiveness. Just like when you give away the unwanted clothes to a charity…you need to give those unwanted feelings in your life to God.
Dust - I hate dusting but in our family room the cabinet, where the television sits on, gets so dusty. You can especially see the dust in the late afternoon when the sun is shining through the windows. That’s what God is doing….He’s shining down and exposing all the dust in our hearts like hurt feelings, laziness, and bad attitudes that need to change. We need to let God wipe those areas clean!
Sweeping and Scrubbing the floors - When my kitchen floor is really dirty, I get on my hands and knees and really scrub. Sometime I have to use a knife to get up dirt and grime that has really stuck to the floor. What dirt and grime is still stuck in your heart? Let God start scrubbing!
Open the windows and let the “Son” shine in!
How’s your spirit and heart today? Do you need a cleansing? Are you letting outside influences rule over your life?
I want God to “restore to me the joy of His salvation and grant me a willing spirit”. (Psalm 51:12). I want to be willing to let Him lead me in the path that He has chosen for my life. He’s ready to “sweep” away our sins and “dust” away our pain. But we have to be willing to expose them and ask Him to “cleanse our hearts”. He is the only One that can make us clean and restore our joy. He is the only one that can pick up the pieces when we fall apart.
God is the Head of Cleaning Services! He’s the one that is suppose to be doing the cleaning….not us!
Are you willing to let God “create a clean heart” within you today? Let’s get cleaning!