He'll Wash Your Sins, Not Your Laundry

Today, I learned how to wash my clothes by hand! We learned once during orientation but I didn’t feel like I had a good grasp on it. At first, Salina said that the young women could wash my clothes but I insisted that I help and learn. You would think that such a mundane task would be easy but there is a lot of work that goes into it!

            First, you make some soapy water and put your clothes in the water. Next, you take a bar of soap and one garment. You rub the soap all over the garment and then rub the garment together against your hands. When you do it right it looks cool and makes an even cooler sound. I have yet to master it. After you think the garment has been scrubbed enough you wring it out and put it in a bucket of clean water. You continue this until all your clothes are in the second bucket. Now, you don’t use soap but you still rub the garment together and wring it out and place it in clean water. You continue this until the water is clean and the garments are no longer soapy. This part of the process can take a while. Today we rinsed and wrung out my clothes 4 times before they were finished. Of course, you can assume the next task is hanging everything out to dry. Reading this it sounds really easy but I promise you it is more work than you think!

While I was washing my clothes I began to think about sin. Yes, my sins are forgiven because Jesus already paid that price but it still takes some work for me to repent. My sins are my dirty clothes. The clothes are covered in dirt, shame, ugliness, hate…the list could go on. God meets me where I am with the soap of Jesus to scrub my clothes clean. Now, the dirt is washed away. The sin is cleansed and I am forgiven. However, in order for me to repent and change the way I act and believe there is so much more that needs to happen. That’s how I see each rinse cycle. Each rinse may be a scripture that pertains to the sin, a devotion, a sermon, a conversation with another believer, or a kairos moment from God.  These things make up the water, the water of life, and each time the garment is wrung out is a piece of the notion to sin leaving. Whatever the rinse cycle may be is helping me change and grow and hopefully do better next time. The clothes are hung out to dry, worn again, and eventually they become dirty and full of sin again. The cleansing process is repeated.

It is a continuous cycle. My clothes will always get dirty and I will always sin.  However, I’m always forgiven by the love of Jesus and the grace of God. I believe if I am spending time in the living water through scripture, prayer, devotions, sermons, and other believers I can make a difference. I will never break the cycle of sin but if I’m trying to live like Jesus lived, I’m happy. Jesus washed away my sins. Jesus washed away our sins. If only he would wash my laundry too. J