dishes with God

i am generally a very neat person.
i love organization, and i love the feeling of a clean house . . . i will not leave it out of order for long.

one thing i hate though . . . is dishes. well, no. i don't hate doing them . . . but i find it hard to motivate myself to do them. i guess its one of those love/hate relationships. i hate taking the time to do dishes, but i love the feeling of an empty sink and spotless kitchen.

last night, i decided it was finally time to attack my sink full of dirty dishes. i always listen to Walk in the Word sermons while i do dishes, it is my routine . . . and has become a special time with God.

last night God showed me something as I was scrubbing baked on egg off my grill. i have had the same attitude towards dishes as i have had towards Him too often . . . ignoring Him, until i finally give in. not only that - but ignoring issues of sin, things that I know He is wanting to change in my life. sin is like dishes . . . if you leave it to sit for a long time, it is a lot harder to get clean.

i find it a challenge to set aside time to be alone with Him . . . yet when I finally get to that quiet place, and my heart stills . . . nothing feels better. like the satisfaction of drying the last dish and putting it away. and i wonder why it took me so long to come to that place . . .
a silly analogy - but I am sure you know it to be true. its the getting there that is so hard - swallowing our stubborness and pride . . . but once we are in His presence, all else is forgotten and you know that is right where you are to be. and that sin that you thought to be so appealing . . . you laugh at the thought of it.
i mentioned in my last post about going to church out of "obedience"
. . . that is something the Lord has really been speaking to me about. especially in the area of spending time alone with Him. i am stuck in the rut of thinking that it is better not to come before God at all, then to come before Him with a heart far from His. then i read something that C.S. wrote on the topic of emotion . . .

"Don't worry about feeling flat, or about feeling at all. As to what to do, I suppose the normal next step, after self-examination, repentance and restitution, is to make your Communion; and then to continue as well as you can, praying as well as you can . . . and fulfilling your daily duties as well as you can. And remember always that religous emotion is only a servant . . . Don't worry if your heart won't respond; do the best you can. You are certainly under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, or you wouldn't have come where you now are; and the love that matters is His for you - yours for Him may at present exist only in the form of obedience. He will see to the rest"

i love that.

Come before God in obedience . . . and He will take care of the rest. afterall, that's what grace is all about right?

think of Him the next time you do the dishes. He wants to spend that time with you.