Comfy Clothes in need of Laundry
Teachers see different students’ personalities, learning styles, and unique needs. Often students will wear the same hoodie for several days in a row. No big deal, it’s like a jacket–and we all wear jackets many times before we throw them into the laundry. However, one of my students once wore a soiled pull-over the entire week. In addition, by Friday she began to smell as badly as her clothes looked. While I prayed for her and her home situation, I also submitted her name to the counselor and social worker.
Our Dirty Souls in need of Cleaning
Without Christ, our souls are a matted mess like that of my student’s hoodie, in need of the laundry. No amount of laundry detergent, stain-free spray, good intentions, or good deeds will remove our sins. Only submitting ourselves to God and accepting His sovereignty over our lives can detangle and cleanse our corrupt nature.
Cleansing My Soul
Many years ago at age eleven, I walked forward in church and asked God to be my Savior. I prayed the sinner’s prayer, and God entered my heart. God’s Good News is that simple!
While it is not the words that saved me, my salvation emerged from God’s grace. When we stand In the moment of accepting His precious gift, we can be speechlessly in awe! The sinner’s prayer gives us some meaningful words to begin our relationship with Him.
For years, I walked in the knowledge that I would go to Heaven when I died. I often made different choices than that of my classmates. I tried to be kind to others, even when they mistreated me at times. Was I perfect? Heavens, no.
Growing up, perhaps I was making better choices than some of my classmates, but I was far from living my life in God’s will. On Sundays I was more intuned with God’s desires, but during the week my habits were still present; my selfish thinking was still self-serving. At best, I was striving to behave a little above my peers’ standards. But I was not asking God to show me His ways.
Keeping Myself Clean
Somewhere along the clothesline of life, it occurred to me that His ways are not my ways and my ways are not His ways. I realized I was wearing dirty clothes over a soul that I had asked God to continuously cleanse. What a dishonor to My King, who made such a sacrifice for me.
Over the years, I have grown as a Christian. Most days I start my mornings in fellowship with God. Then sometimes during the day I put the dirty hoodie back on as I slip back into my old ways. God’s abounding grace gives me the opportunity to remove the hoodie and let him wash it clean. But I must take it off and hand it over by repentance.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55: 8-9 (ESV)
