I hope you all had a good day today. Mine was really fun as I got to clean windows for 9 hours. As I was cleaning my mom's windows I decided to start on the outside first. I guess because it was nice and cool outside . So as I began to start spraying the Windex and scrubbing them then noticed after completing the first window it still looked dirty. I knew it had been since 1976 since they have been cleaned last. Possibly by the person who installed them, but my goodness I just cleaned them twice. So I climbed back on the ladder and did it all over again. Finally after much thought, sweat, and frustration I decided to move on. I just assumed it had to be dirty from the inside and everything would be just fine once I got there. So after about four hours I finally finished with the outside and now I can began with the inside.
So I start spraying and scrubbing until I got to the point where I feel I'm done. I back up and looked to see my wonderful job and realize it still looks dirty. I said to myself, are you kidding me! I just scrubbed it three times on the outside and one time on the inside. How is this even possible? Actually I was saying to myself that my parents window's suck! I started to look a little closer and realized the problem wasn't the outside, or the inside of the window. There was moisture inside the pane somehow that I knew there was no way it was coming clean. I just decided to move on because what else could I do.
You may be wondering if you made it this far in my story where in the world I going with this E.talk. Well, when you spend 9 hours looking at your reflection all day, God can some how give you something to think about. I started to think about myself and how dirty I can be on the outside sometimes. Sometimes I'm not very nice. Sometimes I look at people like I want to rip their head off. Sometimes I get so annoyed with people that I know they can see it all over my face. I know I can use some Windex regularly for that outward appearance from time to time.
Now for the inside. Man do you ever think something so bad about a person it keeps you up at night? Or maybe you feel guilty about something you said to another person, and you knew it hurt their feelings? Well I'm pretty sure we all do it from time to time. Sometimes we say things to try and help, but in reality we caused more hurt than anything.
Well my window application is really this. We need to clean the inside as well as the outside more regularly. We should not wait so long because the amount of dirt left on them seems to take much longer to clean than if we were to cleaned them a little more often.
When I started thinking about this devotional this morning I began to start thinking about what Bible verse I could use to make this a legit devotional. The one that came to my mind was Mathew 7:3, "Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
So often we look at others in a judgmental way, but forget about our own issues. We are all sinners, and we have all fallen short of the glory of God. I hope this brings a little thought to your evening.
Please Remember this also; when someone is trying to do something good, or trying hard to branch out in a new area of ministry, let's give them a little break. You never know how it could affect someone. Just maybe they might stop doing what God laid on their heart. Not everyone will have the same abilities. Do you remember who Jesus picked to help him? Ordinary people who had the desire to follow Christ.
I hope you have a good evening and be sure to keep encouraging your brothers.
God bless,
E. Talk