My children are extremely adept at cleaning a kitchen without actually cleaning it. They will assure me that they did a good job and that all the dishes have been washed and yet, when I go to check I inevitably find dishes all over the kitchen.
Now the trick is, these dishes are not sitting in the middle of the counter or in the sink. They are cleverly pushed into corners or left on the back of the stove or camouflaged next to the napkin holder on the table. By the time I go around gathering the “hidden” dishes, there is another sink-full to wash.
I am usually met with what appears to be genuine dismay on the part of the dish washer who insists that they thoroughly checked the kitchen. I suppose they are implying that I magically caused these dishes to appear out of thin air. Let’s be honest, if I had those kind of powers I am sure I would not use them to create dirty dishes!
As I was on another of these dish gathering missions, it got me to thinking about how I too tend to push unwanted things to the corners of my life. Just like my kids, I don’t exactly hide these issues, but I am not overly anxious to confront them either. It usually takes God pulling these issues from the corners and telling me it is time to take a good look at them to get me to work on them.
It is weird, but once I deal with these not-so-hidden issues, I feel better. Much better in fact, than when I was putting energy into keeping them at bay. The same principle I try to teach my kids about being thorough in the kitchen works in my personal life too. It is much easier to deal with something as soon as possible than it is to let it molder in the corners! This is probably what Jesus was trying to convey when He taught about truth. There is cleansing power in allowing truth to shine into even the dark corners of our souls. Just as I want my whole kitchen to be clean, God want our whole lives to be healed and transformed.
“Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'” John 8:31-32
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