On Friday evening I finished an all-day cleaning blitz on the house, in anticipation of my wife’s return from two weeks in Scotland with three of our four children.
At the end of it all I was sweating, panting, aching, and stinking (of bleach, polish, detergent, air freshener, etc.).
Who would have thought that one man and one teenager could produce so much detritus in 14 days! The kitchen floor looked so clean on Friday morning that I wondered why my wife was always sweeping it…that is until I started sweeping it. Where did that all come from?
Why did I not just wait until Shona returned and let her do it? I mean she’d do it so much better and so much quicker. Plus, she enjoys it! No, really, she does.
Well, before I lose all my female readers, let me explain why I decided to deny my wife the pleasure of cleaning house after her two-day camel-train from a remote Scottish island to Grand Rapids.
It wasn’t law. It was love.
It wasn’t because she commanded me to clean the house (she didn’t). It wasn’t because she would punish me if I didn’t (she wouldn’t…I think). It wasn’t to make her praise me (though that was quite nice).
It was simply because the one I love was coming home and I wanted to create an environment where we could immediately enjoy one another’s company again and catch up on all the news and adventures without her having to immediately pull out the brush and the bleach.
And although I’ve now got painful tendonitis in my wrists from over-vigorous vacuuming and scrubbing (pathetic isn’t it), I couldn’t help reflect on Saturday how I should also prepare in a similar manner for meeting with my God and Savior in Church on Sunday.
So often when we get to church, there’s so much of the week’s rubbish still hanging around in our lives, minds, and hearts: so many distractions, so much unfinished business, so much unbelief, so much filth, and so much unconfessed and unrepented sin.
Why don’t I prepare for meeting and communing with my Savior with the same intensity as when anticipating my wife’s return? Why don’t I always set apart time on Saturday to make sure nothing external nor internal will get in the way of me meeting Jesus and getting precious catch-up time with Him on Sunday.
And imagine if after an hour of my wife’s return I said, “Right, I’m off to watch the football now!”