Garbage Day

I John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

It’s Garbage Eve in my neighborhood, and I can hear the sound of garbage cans being rolled out to the curb. Some people take out the trash on Garbage Eve and others wait until the morning of Garbage Day itself. It’s a ritual that repeats itself every week, with people emptying the wastebaskets and the kitchen trash before heading outside with all their out-of-date papers and their food gone bad. We don’t do this because we’re forced to by law, but because we know the dangers of letting the trash accumulate in the house.

In our spiritual “house,” sin is the trash that needs to be regularly removed if we want to avoid the dangers its buildup will bring. But, unlike the trash, once a week isn’t often enough for clearing out the sin.

I pray daily, in the evening because my mind just doesn’t function well in the morning. But as I think back over my prayer life lately, it’s mostly requests for other people and thanks for the Lord’s blessings. There’s not much confession.

And I have to wonder, am I failing to confess because I’ve grown hardened to my sin? Or is it because I wait until I’m too tired at night to really give my whole self to prayer? It’s probably some of both. And what kind of effect is building up in my life because I let so much time go by without confessing my sins?

How is your spiritual “house?” Take a look at the trash you might be allowing to build up around you, and bring your sins to the Lord in confession. Let him purify you from all unrighteousness.

May we know, once again, his faithfulness and his forgiveness.

Brenda