The Truth Is in the Vacuum Cleaner
Even if you have a rug by the door. Even if you take your shoes off. Even if you are very careful. No matter how hard you try, you are bound to track dirt from outside inside your house. The truth is in the vacuum cleaner. It does not lie.
Sure, especially if your dog is as hairy as ours, your vacuum cleaner will suck up lots of debris generated from the inside of your house. All life is messy. But your vacuum will remove more debris tracked inadvertently from the outside to the inside than you realize. It is bound to happen. The truth of the vacuum cleaner is that the world intrudes into your house more than you think.
That’s a significant point to ponder.
What are you tracking into your life from outside that you do not realize? What thought patterns of the world are clinging to you? What slogans or “accepted wisdom” from outside have snuck into and then stuck to your way of thinking? What habits of our culture have come to clutter your way of life? Like dirt that gets tracked into the house of the most persnickety clean freak, so the world’s ways find their way into our ways.
That’s the lesson of the vacuum cleaner.
What to do? Two things.
Spend time daily in the Word and prayer. You may not vacuum daily, but when you read the Bible and devote yourself to prayer every day, your path through life will both be illuminated (Psalm 119:105) and swept clean.
Second, worship in a church. Join other believers in a local congregation to sing, hear the Word, experience the saving presence of Jesus, be built up in the fellowship of the redeemed. Really root around in God’s grace and mercy; let it cling to you. Then intentionally track that around both in the world and back into your home. Think of it as an air freshener attached to a vacuum cleaner.
Jesus enjoins his people to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Let’s learn the lesson of the vacuum cleaner. It shows that the debris of the world makes its way into the house. Let’s be more aware of and on guard against the world’s intrusion into our lives, marriages, childrearing practices and interactions with others. Maybe this is why people say that cleanliness is next to godliness?