Between working childcare for a Young Adult Weekend at a local church camp, moving dirty volleyball light posts, walking barefoot on a dirty wood floor, and changing a car battery, I’ve had to work double-time this weekend to scrub off a myriad of black spots. Some of them, I didn’t think would ever come clean. Others caught my eye after I thought the scrubbing was finished, and I had to start again. Three showers later, I think I’m finally to a point where there are no more dirty spots to scrub.

This happens sometimes when I paint, too. I’ll clean up and change, run to the grocery, and someone will point at the spot I’ve missed on the back of my elbow. “Someone’s been painting!”

Spots on mirrors, spots on windows, spots on the wall–everywhere we look, we find dirty places that need cleaning. And don’t even get me started on my kids!

It’s so easy to become spotted without meaning to. And it’s so easy to miss spots when we’re scrubbing.

This reminds me a lot of my walk with God. I stumble into sin before I’ve realized it, and sometimes it takes more than a scrub or two to get things back to good.

Maybe it’s walking into a furniture store and coveting things I know I can’t afford. Or possibly it’s an argument with a friend that festers into a week-long war. It might even be less sinister than that, and just the omission of something to grow my faith because I didn’t feel like it.

The world constantly intrudes in our lives, brushing up against us and dusting us with sin.

But James 1:27 says:

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Remember this today, when you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed and seeing all the hoopla about what celebrities are divorcing and who’s worthy of gossip. I know I need to!

Have a blessed day!