Dust

I'm not sure what I despise more... Dust or Dusting. 

Everyone has that one chore that they absolutely loathe. For some, it's cleaning bathrooms. For others, it's washing dishes. For still yet others, its folding laundry.

Mine is dusting.

I'll list some of the issues I have with dust below:

1) It's disgusting. Do literally millions of dead skin cells sound appealing to anyone???
2) It's *always* accumulating. As soon as you start cleaning, you make some of it airborne and then it settles right back where you already cleaned.... Grr.
3) It gets on EHV-REE-THANG! There is next to nothing that escapes its filthy hold. 

My issues with the act of dusting follow some of those aforementioned points- It's gross. It's never-ending. It's everywhere--> and therefore never ending! I feel like I can never get a good hold on it and everywhere I look there's more. 

To my OCD brain... it's nearly maddening. 

I spent part of my Saturday morning yesterday working hard at this dreaded chore. I vacuumed, which only helped reach some areas, and then, begrudgingly, I grabbed my "heavy duty" swiffer, got down on my hands and knees, and crawled around attempting to reach the areas that I was too lazy to reach the last time. (Shame on me, I know.) 

As I worked, I began to sweat. Now, don't be too shocked, I'm out of shape and it surely doesn't take much; but the fact remains that this somewhat simple and brainless chore was tedious enough to make me perspire. I bitterly scolded myself for not being more diligent about keeping up with this task and I thought many-a-phrase tearing myself down for it. I was lazy. I was reaping the consequence of said laziness. I knew better. I should've...could've...would've... a ever never-ending cycle.

"From now on..." I promised myself, emptily. "From now on I'll do better." 

Sure. Let's see how I do on that one. #WatchMeEyerollAtMyself

As I crawled around berating myself, I got this gut-punch from the Lord. I could almost audibly hear Him asking me "Do you care this much about the spiritual dust in your life?"

Well... as an influential preacher once said- "If you can't say 'amen', you've gotta say 'ouch'." 
I was definitely in the "ouch" department on that one... and I think some of you should be, too.

See, I think when Christians think about dust in their spiritual lives, they think of that old bluegrass song "Dust on the Bible" sung by Hank Williams like an eon and a half ago. They picture a "christian" that never opens their Bible, never even gets it off the shelf, and, when they finally do, there's like an inch-and-a-half of dust covering it. Christians today elevate their self-esteem thinking 'Gee, I carry my Bible to church every week *and* unzip the case- so no dust could possibly have a chance to collect.' Or 'I read my Bible aloud during prayer group every week.' Or even 'I open it every morning before I start my day.' But I challenge you to understand that these things aren't exactly the kind of spiritual dust I'm referring to.

Don't get me wrong, all of those things are well and good. All of those things should be continued. Please, please, please get your Bible out to start your day! 

It's still not what I'm referring to.

Those things are equivalent to my dusting the house with the vacuum. They get the big parts. They remove the dust from the noticeable areas. They stir that spiritual dust around just enough to keep it from settling too badly. 

The Lord challenged my heart yesterday that there are some deeper areas of my life that I've been neglecting in the dusting department. He challenged me to get down on my hands and knees and start heavy-duty-spiritual-swiffering. This past week I've started a new process with my morning quiet time. I've had a habit of waking up, praying, reading scripture, and then reading a morning devotional. (Shout-out to Spurgeon's "Morning and Evening", it's incredible!) But I kinda got stuck in this routine and I started pushing my wake up time a little later...and then a little later... and then a bit later. I could still get all that routine in, I just knew I could get it done faster and sleep a little longer... 

But Sunday, a week ago, I was convicted to change my routine up. I keep all that stuff, and I've added an allotted time for just worshipful prayer and a time of silence before the Lord to hear Him. This means I have to get up earlier. This means I have to be spit spot with readying for work in order to have my complete focus on this time. This means intentionality. Well, stupid-me thought that this was gonna be an easy thing to implement. Stupid-me WAY underestimated how hard it is to fill the void of that allotted time with worship and then silence. Like, that means I can't allow my mind to wander; and geez Louise does it try. I literally spent mornings this week telling the Lord "apparently I don't know how to pray in this way..."

Yesterday, the Lord revealed that this area of fuzzy frustration is an area that I've allowed dust to settle in my life. See, I do the daily quiet time thing, I have consistently for years, but I allowed it to grow stagnant and dusty. I allowed that hidden nook to get filthy, and the broad vacuum of baseline quiet time couldn't reach it. 

As I continued to crawl around on the floor, the Lord began to fill my heart with Scriptures. He reminded me of the passages in both Matthew and Luke, where Jesus teaches on the man that cleaned up his life and swept his house clean, but left it empty and unguarded. More evil than had previously been in his life came back and filled the void again because the man wasn't diligent to keep his spiritual life clean. (Matthew 12:43-45; Luke 11:24-26.) 

The Lord reminded me also of the time in Matthew where Jesus spoke about His return. How no one knows the day, nor hour, but that we should always be prepared. (Matthew 24:42-51)

Also of the passage about the 10 virgins awaiting the bridegroom. Where Jesus warns us to be prepared for His coming with full lamps; and not to be caught off guard unprepared and haphazard about His impending arrival. (Matthew 25:1-13)

Scripture warns us of the consequences of lazy spirituality. Jesus Himself, as evidenced in these passages and others, gives caution to growing too comfortable in our spiritual walk and not maintaining upkeep and inventory on our spiritual condition. We are warned of cleaning up our life and then raising our hands as thought the job is done- cuz trust me, trust Scripture, it's not. 

My physical laziness allowed dust to gather on both the easily visible areas of my house and the harder-to-see ones. I had to work harder to clean up the layer of dust in some of the areas because I neglected to clean it off while it was still light. 

Comparatively, I am now having to humble myself before the Lord as He is re-teaching me to pray and be still before Him. If I never would have allowed dust to gather in that area, I could be in such a deeper place of prayer and communion with the Lord today than I am. I'm ashamed of my own spiritual neglect in this area, and I'm wildly grateful for His grace. 

I'm certain there are other areas of my spiritual life that are gathering dust in unseen places. Just as I'm certain that there is dust yet again accumulating in the same places I dusted yesterday. I intend to seek the Lord and pray for sanctification in these hard-to-reach areas. I guess I'll be on my knees dusting both physically and spiritually. (Bah-dum-tsss) 

This now begs the question: How do you feel about dust?