The Kitchen Window

Our kitchen window is one of the few east-facing windows in our home. It's a comforting sight when the first glimmers of daylight brighten the the room while I'm making our morning coffee. This window has been a favorite spot of my succulent plants, as well as a lesser favorite of mine...house flies. With little people always coming and going, we had our share of flies sneak in. Once they enter, they seem to head straight for that window. It's brilliantly lit, and appears to lead to freedom, but is really where they meet their end. I keep a fly swatter just below the sink, and when flies are in abundance, I go to work. Andrew upped my game with one of those electric tennis racket fly swatters. The zap is so satisfying, but I seem to best reduce the headcount when they were cornered in the window.

I don't really need to tell you where this is going, but I'll draw it out for the sake of analogy. A week or so into fly swatting, I noticed the window getting a little grimy. My zeal for killing flies left me approximately ZERO grace in my touch, and made for some messy spots on the window. The warm weather has kept the flies healthy and steadily streaming in every time the girls go out to play. I have kept the swatter handy, and refuse to clean the window because I'll just be back cleaning it again tomorrow.

I'm embarrassed to say that this pattern of swatting-not-scrubbing went on for several weeks. If any of you are familiar with the term "house blind", then you'll understand that I had a bad case of it. Sometimes there are just too many day-to-day things that need your attention over noticing other projects, so some things often are left unpainted, unfixed, or generally uncleaned. That was guilty-guilty me to-a-T, where that window was concerned.

That is until yesterday. Company was coming and I gave a good hard look at that window. I was horrified. Those seemingly small, clear fly guts added up over time, and what I beheld was a massacre. I was so disgusted that I even checked my calendar to guesstimate how long it'd been since the window had fallen into such filth. How many dear friends had come and gone and seen that disgusting sight?! I was sickened.

I immediately whipped out the cleaner and did what I should have done ages ago. A few minutes of scrubbing later (because you know, eww, hard-dried fly guts), and suddenly, my view of the backyard became brighter! The sun shone in with greater resiliency, the grass in the backyard even appeared greener, and to top it off, the kitchen seemed cleaner! It was amazing! Such a small change made a drastic difference.

A peek through the window the following day felt shocking as I realized the contrast from what I'd grown accustom to seeing. Why had I lived with it like that for so long?! There were beautiful things to behold outside, but I had gotten so used to seeing them through a film of fly guts. That lens became the norm, and I didn't realize how bad it was, or what I was missing.

As I pondered this, I began to imagine how this is like our spiritual lives. How long do we let one little sin mar our vision? We use an "acceptable" variation of taking the Lord's name in vain, aren't faithful to correct the kids when they are doing something they shouldn't, or any number of seemingly harmless things. We buy into the lie that 1 + 1 doesn't = 2. But it always does, no matter how you figure it. We say: "It's no big deal", or "I can deal with that later", but we don't. As I've found with math and fly guts...they always add up.

Before we know it, we've let loads of little pests in, and we get used to how things appear. In our messy attempt to deal with the situation, we have created a disaster. We've forgotten how things should look, and swapped reality with a view through a grimy film. For believers, I pray that if we aren't faithful to deal with killing little sins when they're small, that we would be awakened to the dirt on our glasses, and get to work through repentance, and turning away from whatever may be hindering our vision.

Let's be thankful for the Lord's prompting our hearts when it's time to move on, change, or just clean up. And also be grateful for the ones who are faithful to lovingly point out any habits of sin in our lives. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but many are the kisses of an enemy." - Proverbs 27:6 Just like windex does wonders for a dirty window, confessing and turning from unkindness, laziness, or _________ (fill-in-the-blank), does wonders to clear our vision for how the Lord wants us to live.

Are you looking through a dirty window? Has a little time with a certain sin created a sub-par film that's hindering your vision of the Son? If so, I pray He moves you to get to work and do some scrubbing. Sometimes it takes no time at all, compared to the beauty and clarity that await you.

P.S. To the flies that are persistently invading my kitchen window...I've had enough. I'm waiting, fly swatter in hand. Followed immediately by windex.