The Importance of Cleaning:

I am not a fan of cleaning.  I know a lot of people don’t necessarily like cleaning, while there are some who consider it to be stress-relieving.  However, I am not one of those people.  I will say that I don’t hate it as much as I used to, and I believe that I have gotten better at cleaning since starting to live on my own.  The reason I have cleaning on my mind is that I have had to do a lot of cleaning recently.  My mom and I deep cleaned my apartment, and then I also have to move classrooms, so I needed to clean out my room in order to organize my new classroom by the end of the year.    

This made me realize that cleaning is an important part of life.  Can you imagine if you never cleaned your apartment or house?  It would be a disaster, and sometimes it could lead to sickness if there is a lot of mold and dust.  Also, it is very important to clean on a fairly regular basis, because that way we don’t get engulfed by all the cleaning and the work that we need to do.  If we spend time cleaning every once in a while, and keep up with it, then our places will be cleaner and we will be less overwhelmed. 

We also need to clean out our hearts when it comes to the Lord.  There are times when we can get so distracted by items in our life that we may not be noticing the Lord’s goodness that is happening.  We get busy, and then all of a sudden we may notice, that we aren’t growing in our relationship with the Lord, we start forgetting to pray or read our Bible, and soon our emotions and behavior are much impacted.  Just like cleaning the house, this is best if it is something we do on a regular basis, not something that we do just every once in a while.  Cleaning your heart regularly will make your heart less dirty, just like cleaning your house regularly will keep you away from becoming behind and overcome by filth.  

Believe it or not, there are even verses such as one in Psalms about having a clean heart and keeping one’s heart clean.  This is Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”  I love this verse because it is so simple.  The desire is that God helps his believers to have a clean heart.  This is one of the times when we need to remember that our heart is the leader of how we feel, how we interact with others, how we act in our everyday lives, and how we even love ourselves starts with our heart and how well it is staying cleaned. 

How do we best do that? Well, again, just like cleaning, it is important to break this down into steps.  First, there is the dusting and vacuuming.  I believe this is like getting alone or with a believer you trust in order to start the airing out of your ugliness and your sins.  It is important to get yourself away from the distractions and the toxicity of the world, at large.  This really can only be done with yourself and your heart or with a trusted fellow brother or sister in Christ.  This is getting away from things that could make you sin just like dusting or vacuuming can get rid of the items that can cause sickness in your home.  

The next thing in cleaning is scrubbing.  This can be when we scrub our oven, our showers, our sinks, and even, yes, our toilets.  After separating ourselves from the world, or we are with our trusted brother and sister in Christ, now there is a need to talk deeply about the sin we are struggling with, and spend time reading through the Bible about his complete truth.  We are letting God take his place back into our hearts.  This also should be done in correlation with prayer, and this may also include a lot of emotion.  I know when I have done deep dives or spent a long time in the Bible, I will usually end up in tears.  It can be an emotional piece, letting your heart be cleaned and given back to the Lord.  

Lastly, there is organizing and putting everything in its place.  I believe this is spending time creating a plan to get life back on track.  This is figuring out a time every day that is best to spend with the Lord. I know that I need to develop a plan in order to keep myself accountable, and I know that it can be very important for others to do the same.  This is developing a reading plan for the Bible, a prayer journal, figuring out verses you want to memorize, etc.  It is important to remember that this will be different for everyone, and this may look different from one month to another. 

I know that I personally am overwhelmed often by my anxiety and my emotions.  I am spending time with the Lord every day for about 20 minutes, and I am going to church every week, but I know that I personally need to clean out my heart more regularly through verbal processing.  I am excited that this following fall, I have found a woman who is going to meet with me every other week or so to lead me in Bible discussions for a deeper love for the Lord.  I discovered that this was something I needed in order to grow close to the Lord and clean my heart.  My challenge for you this week is to spend some time discovering what you feel you may need to do in order to clean your heart and grow closer to the Lord.