Holy Lessons from the Hole-y and Dirty Laundry - Part 2

As I sat there in the middle of the living room floor, knees folded beneath me, the rhythm of the continuing task at hand almost hummed in my mind like a familiar tune.  Sort, fold, stack.  Sort, fold, stack.  Laundry is such a routine task, and honestly, not one of my favorites.  Yet, without warning, just like the hole-y socks, something else grabbed my attention.

Stains.  With two young and active kids, no amount of pre-soaking, scrubbing, or pre-treating gets out every single stain.  Grass stains, slobber stains from a welcoming dog passing by, bubble-solution stains, wiping-my-hands-on-my-shirt-rather-than-a-napkin stains, ink stains, blood stains, paint stains - you name it, I've tried to treat it.  Sometimes it doesn't even matter if the clothes are washed in warm, cold, or hot water.  Stain charts could be followed perfectly, but the stubborn stains just won't let go.  They cling to garments like a baby with separation anxiety clings to it's mother.

Doing this laundry with without complaint, with vigor, and with a joyful heart (the pre-soaking, scrubbing, and pre-treating if you will) seems good, at least in my eyes…my very self-righteous eyes. But God's viewpoint of my "good" is much different.  He sees it just like the stained laundry.  

"But we are all as an unclean thing, 
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; 
and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, 

like the wind, have taken us away" (Is. 64:6).

At my best, all I have to offer are filthy rags.  But this I do know…

"What can wash away each stain? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.

No other fount I know.  Nothing but the blood of Jesus."

"There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins; 
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 
Lose all their guilty stains:

Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains; 
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 
  Lose all their guilty stains." 

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, 

and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

Let those thoughts soak in for a bit.  We don't want blood stains on our clothes, yet the precious blood of Jesus makes us clean!  If that doesn't change your perspective on laundry, I don't know what will.