Wash, Rinse, Repent!

I'm listening to the wastewater from the washing machine pour down the drain. The laundry room is now on the other side of my office and that, to me, is sublime. I really hate doing laundry. When my office was on the third floor, I'd throw in a load, telling myself to check on it in forty minutes or so, and I'd forget it. Later in the day --maybe even later in the next day --I'd pass the laundry room on my way out the door and noticed the sealed-up tomb that held our damp, now funky clothes. Yuk! Wash, rinse, repeat. And hope I don't forget again! 

Clothes aren't the only things that can become funky and stale. Relationships can as well, particularly our relationship with those who aren't sitting in the back seat waiting for us to take them to play practice, or those who aren't standing in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open searching for the thing they couldn't find the last three times they checked, or those who aren't daily begging us to take them for a walk. Hey, I didn't say our relationship had to be fun! But our relationship with those folks who aren't always needing, expecting, demanding something of us can grow a little musty, fetid, forgotten like laundry in a sheet metal sepulcher. Our relationship with Jesus can be like that. Out of sight, out of mind. Or the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Right?

Just this past week I got a text from one of our progenies. I hate that I pray more when I need something, it read. No judgment here! I think we can all be guilty of that at some point; maybe we are just as frustrated with ourselves. We get busy and miss a day of quiet time, or quiet time seems to be an assault from one stray thought after another. Prayer happens in the car at seventy miles an hour rather than on our knees in a place of silence. We're not sure of the last time we memorized a verse, and meditation is something that yogis do. Church is much more convenient now that it's live-streamed and pjs are far more comfortable than church pews. Not until we get that late night call, or the pink slip, or the prognosis, or the summons, or the invoice do we get serious about our relationship with Jesus. We dust off our Bibles, call the pastor, recommit to the weekly Bible study, show up in person at church, and set our alarms to "early" so we can meet the Lord while the house is still sleeping. We've hit the WASH button once again, vowing this time to pay attention all the way to the end of the cycle.

Is that how this relationship is supposed to work? Of course not, but it is human nature. Psalm 103:2 urges us, Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Throughout Scripture we are warned not to forget; Judges 2:10 even reports, sadly, an entire generation of Israel came up who did not know the Lord! We forget. We lose track of time. We give ourselves far more credit than we deserve. We miss the significance of rest and silence, and place far too much emphasis on busyness. We choose assertiveness over gentleness. We speak when we should be silent and turn a blind eye when we should defend the faith. We don't know how to defend the faith because we've spent too much time mastering social media. But let's not lose heart! Psalm 103:14 assures us, God knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. Our God is a rememberer. We forget. We are frail and fickle; but He is not. We leave our laundry to grow putrid behind closed doors, we forget the prayers we pray and fail to recall the faithfulness of our Creator. We long to become the obedient and trustworthy Bride He has called us to be, but our longing for things we can pursue with our senses is often greater. But He remembers. And He calls us to wash, to be washed in the blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, to be made white as snow, and to repent from that life, from those desires, from the funky, stale relationship we once had with Him and to walk in newness of life. Immersed in relationship and clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, there's no reason to stink!