Have you ever found yourself doing something simple and mediocre only to learn something extravagant and extraordinary through it?
I often do in the most surprising and sweet ways.
I live in a place known as the Lakehouse. This is a fitting name given the house is situated on the shore of a lake. And in this house on the lake, each person residing there takes care of a weekly chore such as cleaning the bathroom or tidying up the porch areas.
We also need to sweep and clean the hardwood floors.
We at the Lakehouse are also happy dog owners. Our pet, Cocoa, leaves quite a trail wherever she goes. She’s also prone to galavanting in the lake waters to return to the house only to jump and run over every piece of furniture prior to one of us catching her to dry her off with a towel.
With eight people and a canine living under one roof, you can imagine the dirt, dust and hair that makes its way on to the hardwood on the main floor. This includes the kitchen, living and dining rooms, all of which are heavy traffic areas. But, at first glance, you don’t recognize the amount of junk and nasties on your floor.
That is, until you begin to clean it.
I cleaned these hardwood floors last week as a chore. As I neatly swept the dirt and hair littering the Lakehouse floor into piles, I thought to myself, “Goodness! I’ve been walking in this mess all week and didn’t even notice it.”
You see, we can grow accustomed to seeing mess as “normal” or “how it’s supposed to be” because it’s what we live in or surround ourselves with on a regular basis. But why do we want mess when we can experience something altogether better, cleaner even?
And so I kept on sweeping, thinking about how this simple action of me cleaning the hardwood floors related to Jesus and the gospel. You see, I wasn’t cleaning to take note of how filthy and dirty the floors were. I was cleaning to restore and expose what was already there and hidden underneath.
I believed for a while that Jesus came because I was a sinner.
Quite the contrary.
In reality, he came to earth because sin separated us from God. He came to restore and recover what Adam and Eve lost and gave away in the fall. Jesus’ purpose was actually to expose our original created value and to reveal the kingdom of our Father God on earth.
I swept those hardwood floors with a sweet revelation of Jesus’ love and a purpose for why I live: to uncover the beautiful value and worth of every created being and thing.
