Lessons from the dishwasher: Just skip the rinsing process!

I need to sleep. My schedule is going to be so jacked up by the time I go back to school I don't know what I'll do. I haven't seen 1:00am in I cannot tell you how long. I feel like a rebel :) Tonight was fun. I am so blessed that God has put in my life such incredible men and women that love Him and want to honor and serve Him. It was pretty amazing to look around my living room and see 15 or so people who I genuinely love with all my heart spending time together in fellowship. I am so blessed. My amazing friends...they are messy; and despite the ladies wonderful help in getting things put together I just couldn't go to bed without it all clean - it's sick I know.

So, I just finished cleaning up the last of the mess from my after Christmas Christmas party and I can hear the quiet hum of the dishwasher as I type. I shoved so many dirty dishes in the dishwasher before I turned it on. Tonight I skipped the rinse step and just put them all in without getting all the junk off first. I set it on heavy wash and extra high heat and hit start. IT takes a little longer, and uses a little more water and energy, but the dishes are cleaner in the end with less work for me too. :) What a great illustration of what we do with God. He wants our junk. He wants us to come to him with all the dirty, gross, stuck on food still on our plates. He doesn't expect us to go through the rinse process before we come to Him; in fact, he urges us not too.

How often do I make a bigger mess of my life when I try to "clean up" some area of it before I take it to God. "Lord," I will say, " I know you have a perfect plan for my life and I am so excited and eager to know what it is, but I know you can't show it to me until I..." You can fill in the blank with any number of things. Until I what? It's not about me. It never has been. All God asks is that we come to Him...Just As We Are. I need to stop trying to rinse off my dirty spots before handing my life to God. It won't always be easy and maybe God will have to use some high heat, extra water, and heavy washing to make me into the woman He created me to be; but He is way better at getting off the tough stuck on "junk" than I will ever be. I will be a much "cleaner" version of me in the end!

Tonight I quit rinsing! I am laying all of myself at God's feet. I can't hide my dirty plate from God.What dirty spots are you trying to clean up before you go to God? Why? He sees the mess we make - He sees the beautiful person we are beneath the mess. The one that He made and made for a purpose. Skip the rinse - Go straight to God! Let Him make you clean!