This morning I found a cockroach stuck to the screen of my French press.
My mouth still contained the perfect ratio of coffee, stevia and milk, having somehow enjoyed the aforementioned coffee.
I almost threw up.
I managed to unhook the cockroach’s leg without touching it and washed the press. I washed the screen and the carafe. And then I washed it again. I rinsed it very well.
Here’s the deal: stuff like this happens a lot down here. With spaces between our walls and ceilings, with doors that aren’t snug against the floor and door frame, a plethora of God’s glorious creation is going to get into our home and try and make its home among us. And while we do what we can to maintain dominion, we would never get anything else done if we made it super clean. And it would only last for ten minutes anyway.
So Larry taught me the phrase, “do you trust your soap?” And sometimes we thank God for bleach because we for sure trust that.
Do you trust your soap after a cockroach leg is stuck to your French press? Or do you throw it away and buy another one?
Do you trust your soap after the cat throws up on the front porch? This is why I love concrete floors.
Do you trust your soap after a gecko dropping lands on your plate just before you serve your food?
Or after a rat made a nest in a bag of clothes we planned to give away?
When is the soap not enough?
There were some here who wanted to throw away the bag of clothes. To be fair, they were disgusting. Especially since my friends used them to clean up more of the rat’s mess. But I had a baby “soiling” cloth diapers at the time, so I was used to hand-washing very dirty things. I dropped the clothes from the plastic bag directly into a five gallon bucket with detergent and bleach and used a stick to stir them up. Then I dumped the bucket upside down into the washtub and repeated the process (using the aforementioned stick) one more time before I ever actually touched the clothes with my hands.
But even still. I washed them three more times, with a different soap, to make sure they were clean enough for me to happily give them to someone who could use them.
The soap worked. But it took a couple rounds to get out the smell.
It made me think of Hebrews 9 where the author explains the animal sacrifices the priests offered time and time again. It showed that the sacrifice wasn’t sufficient; if it had been, it wouldn’t have required the repetition. But Hebrews 9:28 tells us so beautifully that “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many.”
His cleansing work was good.
But I also know that I don’t always trust it.
So often I recognize my sin and think I still have to sacrifice to God in some way. I know he forgave my sins, but I still feel like I should do something else—just to make sure. Just to make sure he isn’t still mad at me. So I act really repentant. Or I work really hard at pursuing holiness.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I think God delights in us when we just relax and say, “I trust that it’s good. Jesus’ sacrifice worked. My sin is forgiven. I don’t need to do anything else. I trust his cleansing.”
Let’s encourage each other to live without condemnation, shame, guilt or embarrassment from our sin.
Because his sacrifice was good.
Let’s trust the soap.
My mouth still contained the perfect ratio of coffee, stevia and milk, having somehow enjoyed the aforementioned coffee.
I almost threw up.
I managed to unhook the cockroach’s leg without touching it and washed the press. I washed the screen and the carafe. And then I washed it again. I rinsed it very well.
Here’s the deal: stuff like this happens a lot down here. With spaces between our walls and ceilings, with doors that aren’t snug against the floor and door frame, a plethora of God’s glorious creation is going to get into our home and try and make its home among us. And while we do what we can to maintain dominion, we would never get anything else done if we made it super clean. And it would only last for ten minutes anyway.
So Larry taught me the phrase, “do you trust your soap?” And sometimes we thank God for bleach because we for sure trust that.
Do you trust your soap after a cockroach leg is stuck to your French press? Or do you throw it away and buy another one?
Do you trust your soap after the cat throws up on the front porch? This is why I love concrete floors.
Do you trust your soap after a gecko dropping lands on your plate just before you serve your food?
Or after a rat made a nest in a bag of clothes we planned to give away?
When is the soap not enough?
There were some here who wanted to throw away the bag of clothes. To be fair, they were disgusting. Especially since my friends used them to clean up more of the rat’s mess. But I had a baby “soiling” cloth diapers at the time, so I was used to hand-washing very dirty things. I dropped the clothes from the plastic bag directly into a five gallon bucket with detergent and bleach and used a stick to stir them up. Then I dumped the bucket upside down into the washtub and repeated the process (using the aforementioned stick) one more time before I ever actually touched the clothes with my hands.
But even still. I washed them three more times, with a different soap, to make sure they were clean enough for me to happily give them to someone who could use them.
The soap worked. But it took a couple rounds to get out the smell.
It made me think of Hebrews 9 where the author explains the animal sacrifices the priests offered time and time again. It showed that the sacrifice wasn’t sufficient; if it had been, it wouldn’t have required the repetition. But Hebrews 9:28 tells us so beautifully that “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many.”
His cleansing work was good.
But I also know that I don’t always trust it.
So often I recognize my sin and think I still have to sacrifice to God in some way. I know he forgave my sins, but I still feel like I should do something else—just to make sure. Just to make sure he isn’t still mad at me. So I act really repentant. Or I work really hard at pursuing holiness.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I think God delights in us when we just relax and say, “I trust that it’s good. Jesus’ sacrifice worked. My sin is forgiven. I don’t need to do anything else. I trust his cleansing.”
Let’s encourage each other to live without condemnation, shame, guilt or embarrassment from our sin.
Because his sacrifice was good.
Let’s trust the soap.