Hot Water

Have you ever left a dish overnight, and in the morning you were faced with all the dried and crusted remains of whatever food was on it? Maybe it was a pan of brownies (black bean are the best!) or a stack of plates of spaghetti, or maybe bowls of beef stew. Or worse, cups with milk residue. Overnight some kind of evil magic happens, and what was food the night before has become hardened, dried cement. 

Whatever it was, how do you tackle cleaning them? Do you grab a dry rag,and just try to wipe out the grime? Or worse yet, use your hands to get the stuff off of it, chipping away little by little? You could do either of those, but you might ruin your rag. (Like rip an actual hole in it if the stuff is hard enough!) You will certainly gag if you just use your hands to clear out congealed fat from meat. And you’re almost guaranteed to get stuff under your fingernails that way, which you will regret later. Trust me.

My go-to is to squeeze soap all over the surface, and then submerge the dish(es) in super hot water for a while to soften up all the hardened stuff. Somehow that combo of hot water and soap works every time to make cleaning the dish much easier. I don’t usually need to scrape anything afterward, just give it a once-over with a sponge and rinse well. 

Sometimes God has to do the same thing with me. 

I come to him with hardened things in my life and heart: things I’ve left unattended, things I haven’t taken the time to clean when I should. The longer it sits there, the harder it gets. And the only way to get it clean is to be put in ‘hot water’ for a while until I can be softened. I also need the ‘soap’ of rebuke from friends and the Word of God. 

For some reason I learn best when I experience hardship. There are certain lessons I can only learn when I’ve been reminded of my weakness. ‘Hot water’ experiences soften my heart and remind me that there is a whole lot I can’t do on my own. They also remind me in the future to take care of my personal ‘dirty dishes’ before stuff gets dried out and harder to clean off my heart. 

I am sure God has tried to teach me these things in a gentler way, but I am stubborn. I don’t always ‘get it’ the first time. But I am thankful even for the hot water, because it means God hasn’t given up on me! 

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 

Psalm 66:18-20 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:
(19) But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.
(20) Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me. 

Psalm 199:5 O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!
(6) Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.
(7) I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.