Page 92 would have seen the rising sun if it hadn’t been cloudy and drizzling to start the day.  The clouds gave way to sunshine by mid-afternoon so when I left work at 7 this evening I headed down to Potato Creek to catch the sunset.  As I arrived, the clouds began to return and as the sun dropped behind them the temperature began to fall.  One of the eagles met me as I drove into the park so I managed some photos of it and some sunset photos before heading home.  

This page was a Friday which meant early cleaning to start the day and late cleaning to end the day.  In between was some writing, maintenance tasks, and sermon prep.  With a game night at the building tonight and a funeral dinner tomorrow, my weekend cleaning will end up being spread out between this evening and tomorrow night.  As the sun set in the sky and I sat on the pier, I thought about the cleaning that God does in a life submitted to Him.  

Fridays require extra time to fully clean and prepare the building for Sunday worship.  While the daily cleaning that gets done helps keep the weekend cleaning manageable, neither makes the other unnecessary.  Our spiritual life needs similar attention.  Many people live as if a weekly, or even less frequent, attendance at a church service should be enough to keep their life on track with God’s plan and desire.  The effort required to connect with God becomes overwhelming because we’ve allowed the dirt of the world to create a growing distance between us and God.  When we spend time with God on a daily basis to allow Him to deal with the dirt that we get into, the task of being clean before Him isn’t nearly as daunting as when we allow the filth to accumulate.  While it is tempting to look at the current condition and decide it isn’t that bad, putting off a regular cleansing simply makes the work of living clean take much more time and effort when we finally decide a time of cleaning is in order.  When we clean before the mess becomes intimidating, we find the freedom to enjoy the beauty of life that God created for us to have.

I pray that you and I would daily cleanse our life of the sin and filth that so easily entangles and sticks to us.  I pray that we would always remember that the only cleansing agent that has any real effectiveness is the blood of Jesus.  I pray that we would not let sin and filth accumulate in our life, but that we would deal with it as it happens.  I pray that we would know and experience the true beauty of life that comes from being cleansed.