Spring Cleaning the Heart and the Home

In our household, we've spent the last two weeks doing some pretty big spring cleaning. After being closed up for months during late fall and winter, the house has been aired out, closets cleaned, pillows fluffed, toys decluttered...you get the picture. To be honest, I don't really enjoy doing these chores...although that doesn't stop me from seeing the necessity of doing them. It's just the time and energy and motivation it takes that makes spring cleaning less than desirable. 

The same is true for my heart. So many times my heart gets cluttered, cobwebby, dirty and stuffy. I get too "busy"....too lazy....too comfortable in my little world, that I wait until things are out of control before I go to the Father for my heart spring cleaning. I make excuses....too busy, minimizing my sin, denial, even shrugging it off. But just as my house doesn't clean itself...neither does my heart..and eventually, when I look into the deep corners (and sometimes I don't have to even look that carefully), I see the harsh reality of self. 

Today is Good Friday, a beautiful day to meditate on the beauty of the cross. The forgiveness, the sacrifice, the sinless Savior, the scapegoat for my sin, the selfless exhibition of perfection dying for filth, unconditional love, pure blood washing my infected sin away, cleansing. As I reflect on the brutal, life-saving death of Jesus and all (that I can comprehend) that He has done for me, I'm challenged to live a cleaner life because I have been saved from so much. To live more humbly, because I see (dimly) what Jesus did for me. To live with love leading because that's what His example shows....Love covers a multitude of sin....mine, yours...the worlds. 

What a good Friday!