The table is set and one of the guests knocks over a glass of tea. A puddle remains atop of the dining table. You need a tool to clean up the mess. Shall you reach for a squeegee or a towel? If you grab the former, you will clear the table of the mess only to have shifted such to the seat of a chair below. And then, with same said instrument you clean the chair, the liquid simply drips off onto the floor.
What you have is endless frustration.
But what if you first reached for a towel? What if, rather than a hard instrument that only shifted the tea from one place to another, you were able to succeed by using an item that would absorb the mess rather than transfer it? Ah! Marvelous idea!
So what shall we do with the spilled tea (sin) of others in our midst? Shall we use our squeegees of blame, irritation, and disgust? Or, shall we use our own hearts...to absorb the sins of another? Weird you claim? Dismissive you jeer? Yet, isn't the Cross the absorbent from God? Isn't that what Jesus did on That Day? And didn't he offer a preview of the of this glorious scene when he bent with a towel to wipe the dirt...the ugly grime...from the disciples feet?
Have we gotten the picture that we are followers of the Savior as we carry huge towels to wipe up the messes that our enemies present? Or, have we succumbed to religious practice of "talking about" the process; yet, denying its deep and matchless power?
Before you head out the door today, perhaps you might rethink exactly what tool you have packed in your heart? A religious squeegee which only has the capacity to spread another person's sin? Or, a spiritual towel which absorbs offences and failures of others.
One is needed to save the world around us.
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