Laundry

I'm one of those odd people (perhaps the only odd person?) who rather enjoys ironing.

I like how mindless and repetitive it is, and the fact that you can watch TV whilst you're doing it, or listen to music.  I love the smell of clean laundry wafting around the house.  And, most of all, I love the satisfying feeling as the creases disappear as you steam over them with the iron.

I don't, however, enjoy ironing anything made of linen.  It's not the ironing itself that I dislike, so much as the futility of it.  It seems an utterly pointless exercise, as the moment you start wearing linen, it it is creased again and needs ironing all over again.

I think life is a bit like ironing - or laundry - too: things get dirty and stained and creased and wrinkled and need cleaning up and smoothing out.  And in the same way that we wash and iron our clothes regularly, we need to 'wash' and smooth out our lives on a regular basis too.

We need to make them new again.

But we can't do this by ourselves.

David asked God to forgive him, wash him clean and make him new after he had slept with Bathsheba (someone else's wife):

"Generous in love - God, give grace!  Huge in mercy - wipe out my bad record.  Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry [...] Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life."

[Psalm 51:1-2, 7 MSG]

Although God is more than capable of answering this prayer, I think it's easy for us to forget that this is an ongoing process and that this is a prayer we will find ourselves uttering again and again.  Our lives get 'mucky' and we need forgiveness.  We need cleaning up over and over and over again. 

And so we ask God to 'wash' us and clean us up, to 'iron' us and smooth things out.  And we get mucky again.  And God washes us again.  And we get mucky again.  And God washes us again.  And we get mucky again.  And God washes us again.  And so it goes on. 

And God is always faithful and always ready to forgive us and pick us up and dust us off and send us out again, dressed in new, clean clothes.

"Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him."

[Colossians 3:10 NLT emphasis mine]