Deep Cleaning

My mom was pretty much a clean "freak" when I was growing up.  She was always "on" us about picking up after ourselves, rinsing off and putting away our dirty dishes (into the dishwasher), and staying on top of our chores.  Once a month, we did the "deep" clean Saturday.  Deep cleaning Saturdays involved getting up early (before 8 a.m.!), pulling all the furniture away from the walls, cushions off chairs, couches, loveseats, and picking up rugs.  We washed baseboards, trim over doorways, windows, window sills, vacuumed under couches, chairs, etc., vacuumed the cushions and even turned over upholstered sitting devices and vacuumed all the not normally seen places.

 

One time, I took it upon myself to convince my cousin Beverly to help me do all the "deep cleaning" on a Friday afternoon.  Fridays were always our "major" chore days.  We'd get home from school around 2:30 p.m. and have until 6:00 p.m. to get all of our chores done before Hurricane Aunt Lena (my mom) came home.  We had a WHOPPING 3 1/2 hours to do what literally took us about 20-30 minutes (when done correctly).  The deep cleaning Saturdays usually took about 4 hours.  But, if we'd jumped right out of bed and starting working and NOT complaining...we could've been finished in about 2 hours. 

 

My logic dictated we could do this labor intensive "deep cleaning" on a Friday...surprise my mom...garner her adulation and be able to SLEEP in on Saturday morning.  Made sense, right?  Though I generally liked to please my mom, my motivation was all selfishness.

 

There were a few kinks in my plan.  I failed to mention my cousin and I could get the giggles at the mere thought of something funny.  Have you ever tried working hard when you are laughing harder?  Really good belly laughs, sustained over a period of 2-5 minutes, have all kind of wonderful medicinal benefits...but the downside is you get kinda weak.  Also you want to sit down a lot and "recover" from your fits of laughing.  Sometimes we'd laugh so hard our stomachs would hurt!  We'd beg each other to stop being funny. Seriously!  The more we begged to stop...the more we'd laugh.  We were hopeless once we started laughing.  And, we'd get so silly from laughing that just looking at each other would erupt into more silly laughter, begging, and sitting on the floor recovering.  It was a vicious cycle.

 

Another issue I didn't account for in my brilliance - I was 5'6" and my cousin was 4"6 to 4"7 (on a good day). She was a petite thing. I was a healthy 125-135 lbs. and Beverly was a size Zero...weighing 90-95 lbs. wet!  We encountered a few physics issues when trying to lift couches, etc.  Everything was made worse by the laughter. (I'm even giggling now JUST thinking about it!).

 

You're probably thinking we didn't get the job done.  But we did!  The thought of sleeping in was a huge motivator to us.

 

My mom was pretty impressed when she got home!  She was very surprised, thankful and happy with us.  Yeah!  We got to sleep in on Saturday.  Well...until my mom and dad started inspecting, more closely, our handiwork at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning.  I did mention the physics problem, right?  We didn't move the furniture.  Beverly, being height challenged, couldn't reach the same door trims I could, but she did her best...I swear!

 

Even if I had worn ear-plugs when I slept back then, I'm sure I would've still heard that distinctive, commanding "Mar-Y-Eeee-lizabeth" my mom would yell in her slightly high pitched, southern drawl.  Summoned from a deep sleep in such a way causes one's heart to race and body to break out into a cold sweat.  My cousin had perfected the "flight or fight" reaction and was already at my bedside, shaking me to wake up while pushing me out of bed.  You have to imagine this all happening within nano seconds.  It was alarming and confusing, to say the least.

 

(Side fact here.  I am not a morning person.  I do best around 10:00 a.m....but ONLY after I've had time to sit and stare at nothing and sip on a delicious cup of coffee [for at least 15-20 minutes].  How could my dad NOT remember this?  Personally, morning is a rude event to me. All you morning people out there, hooray for you [I murmur sarcastically under my breath].  You are all sick and need to be psychoanalyzed for your enthusiasm with mornings. There has to be a gene deficiency within you morning loving people.  Science just hasn't received enough funding to research this critical mutation in your genetic code. Ah, but I digress....)
 

My mom, the she-hurricane who doth summon me from my bedchamber, was still saying my name in a repetitive, increasingly higher octave yell (a tad lik the repeated plunking of a C-minor key on an out of tune piano).  I was confused, befuddled and a tad upset my much earned sleeping in reward was being interrupted!  Stumbling into the living room, with my cousin cowering behind me (pushing me forward in a really annoying manner), I stutter stepped into the presence of she-who-gave-birth-to-ME-the-brilliant-child and plopped down on her favorite couch (which isn't really a good idea...no matter how justifiable you think you are in being annoyed).

 

All my dad had to do was push to one side the loveseat.  The baseboard, leading up to the loveseat was pristine clean; however, the part hidden by the loveseat was distinctly grey, dusty and filthy.  The jig was up.  We were confronted with our inadequate attempt to duplicate the "deep cleaning" my mom required once a month.

 

Many religious people live their lives this way.  It's called window-dressing.  We look pretty good at a glance, but with closer inspection, the reality is our hearts are empty, sick, ill-tended.  Much like the hidden spaces and out of reach places in my home growing up.  If we can't see it, we think it doesn't matter.  But, God sees our hearts: 1 Samuel 16:7b - For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."

 

Is your life a reflection of what man sees or what God sees?

 

Read on to see what Jesus had to say to the "man-pleasers" of His day.

 

PlanetWisdom.com Devotionals

Clean Hands Empty Hearts Posted: 03 Jun 2009 02:07 PM PDT "He replied, 'Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ' "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men." You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.' " (Mark 7:6-7) To catch up: The Pharisees, threatened by Jesus' power and popularity as a rabbi, try to bring Him down to their size by pointing out that His disciples are breaking an important "tradition" about hand-washing. Jesus cannot be diminished and responds with this quote from Isaiah to their ancestors. Two big things to notice: Jesus' point is NOT that it doesn't matter if we obey God. Jesus obeyed the Law. This issue was about a man-made rule that had been given the weight of God's own commands. In fact, these "bonus rules" not given by God had become more important than what God actually said. The larger point Jesus makes here is that we can keep following the rules long after we've stopped following God. Our worship of Him is not about everything we do together on Sunday morning; it's about Him. We obey Him because He is God, not because we are good. Think: Have you ever caught yourself honoring God with your lips even though your heart was far from Him? Why does that happen? How can we keep it from happening? Pray: Ask God to help you to be real in your worship of Him. Ask Him to help you to avoid making your worship and obedience more about you than Him. Do: Next time you actively participate in singing praise and worship songs to God with a group of people, get ready ahead of time by moving closer to God in your heart. Visit PlanetWisdom.com for more great resources!