I Need the Light

I didn’t grow up in a house where there were wood floors. We had carpet in the bedrooms, and we used a broom on the linoleum in all the others rooms. Or rather, my mom did. I did not enjoy cleaning as a kid.

The other places I’ve lived (apartments, all our houses in South Africa and Zambia) we didn’t have hardwoods either, and we didn’t have a vacuum. We just used a broom. If you’ve ever swept a floor with a broom, you know they are easy to use, and they do a pretty good job. But they always seem to leave a tiny bit of residue that I either try to ignore, or disperse across the floor I just cleaned, hoping it will settle into hard-to-see places.

Am I the only one who does that?

Anyway, in the house we now own, we have wood floors downstairs. And while using a broom is completely acceptable, it just doesn’t get all the dog hair off the floor- which is the main culprit of things that need vacuumed. (Remember, I scoot the swept up remnant around, and dog hair does NOT cooperate.)

Since I grew up with carpets, I often wondered why vacuum cleaners had a light on them. I actually thought it was dumb. Because who vacuums in the dark? And if you’re cleaning carpet, you can tell when everything is clean because it stops rattling. So what in the world is the light for?

Well, then we moved into this house, and I used one on my wood floors for the first time. Let me just say this…Eish. (If you don’t know what it means, look it up. Add it to your vocab.)

There have been days here in Rochester when it’s gray outside, and I look at our floors, thinking they don’t look so bad. Then I notice some dog hair collecting around chair legs, and decide to vacuum. That vacuum light pops on, and all of a sudden all the hair that I couldn’t see before is clearly visible, and I am a bit embarrassed that I put off vacuuming for so long.

It is shocking the amount of things the human eye misses when the light is dim.

And I will be completely honest, and say that this usually happens right before someone comes to visit. I put off cleaning because I don’t feel like it (old habits die hard), and my family ends up tromping through the dog hair and dust for days. But the minute a visitor is coming, I break out the vacuum!!

Have you ever seen the show “The Big Comfy Couch”? They had a segment called the Ten Second Tidy. Basically the main character looks around and sees a huge mess, can’t believe she’s the one who made it, but then relents and stuffs everything into her couch to clean it up. We used to love that show.

Maybe you had to be there.

But I got to wondering the other day, is my spiritual life sometimes the same way? Do I put off ‘vacuuming’ it until there’s a reason it may be examined? Do I leave my family to tromp through the dust and dog hair I’ve let pile up in my life (bad attitudes, disappointment, anger, laziness), and only clean up when a visitor (a pastor, friend in the faith, Bible study leader) may be inspecting me?

And then do I try and do a quick Ten Second Tidy and shove everything in the couch, hoping they won’t notice that things were so recently out of order, and a mess?Just like the vacuum light helps when cleaning my floors, I need light in my spiritual life to reveal the mess, so I can clean it well. If I don’t have a good grasp on, or solid time spent in the Word of God (which is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path, by the way) then I will certainly miss lots of ‘dog hair’.

I need the light of the scriptures to help me see there’s a mess in the first place, and then reveal exactly how bad the mess is, so I can start cleaning. And not miss any spots.

The Ten Second Tidy isn’t gonna cut it, either. It will get surface stuff hidden, but is it really clean? I don’t know of one place I could clean in my house in ten seconds and really feel like I did a thorough job. Getting the light of the vacuum requires work. Our vacuum isn’t lightweight by any means. And I have to actually plug it in for it to work, which means unwinding the cord, and bending down. Then I have to be willing to go over the places that are dirty until I see they are clean. And then I have to dump the dust cup and do it all again.

My spiritual life is the same. It requires work. The Word of God is not lightweight by any means. I have to plug into it to get the light of it to shine in my life. And sometimes I have to revisit areas I thought I had already cleaned, because things can build up. And then dump it and start over again.It is shocking the amount of things the human eye misses when the Light is dim. Lord help me plug in to the light of Your Word so I can clean up my dust and dog hair!

Psalm 119:9-11
(9) BETH. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
(10) With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
(11) Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

Psalm 119:129-130
(129) PE. Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore doth my soul keep them.
(130) The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.