A few weeks ago Sonny was asked to teach on Sunday morning for The Church at Cross Lake. I love getting to hear him teach the Word and I love how the Lord graciously gives him so many real life illustrations to help the Word come to life for those that are listening. It's honestly so awe-inspiring to me to hear how the Lord will show Sonny so clearly how simple, everyday life situations correlate to His Word and His dealings with his children.
As is normally the case, the Lord chose to have a certain incident happen in our family about a week before Sonny was supposed to teach and honestly, I would have missed the spiritual connection if it wasn't for Sonny.
It was around 7 am on a weekday morning and Sonny and I were both getting ready for the day. He was all dressed and ready for his day in the business world (looking super sharp and handsome as usual!!) and we heard Pax moving around and talking in his crib. We usually take turns getting him up in the morning and Sonny said he didn't mind going ahead and getting him. A few minutes later as I was getting our coffee ready, I hear Sonny say, "Mommy! We are going to need your help in here..." I started heading towards Pax's room and before even entering, I could smell THAT smell. You know what I mean when I say THAT smell. Pax had gone "potty" in his diaper and then proceeded to take off his diaper and play in his "mess." It was everywhere. It was on his bed. It was on his stuffed animals and toys. It was in his hair and all over his face. It was everywhere! Sonny graciously took our son into the bathroom and started scrubbing the filth off of him while I began to clean and disinfect the room. By God's sweet grace, neither of us were too troubled by the incident (I guess that's what happens with the 3rd child- there aren't too many new surprises!) After getting everything cleaned (including our little man!), Sonny went off to work and the kids and I went about our day as normal.
Later on that evening Sonny and I were talking and recounting all of the events in our day when we started talking about Pax's morning adventurous mess. Sonny said that the Lord had shown him something really interesting through that incident. We are just like Pax. How often do we get so involved in sinful messes that we end up just wallowing in our own filth!? Before coming to trust in Jesus, that's who we were entirely- sinful people that were just wallowing in stinky sinful crud. Jesus came and said to us, "You're mine. I've come with my own blood to wash you clean and make you HOLY." Then, even after coming to know Him, we can often fall into sin and get all dirty again. Jesus doesn't disown us and go find new children. Again, He comes to us with the gracious love of a Father to remind us of our cleaning through His sacrifice and bring us back to Him. He reminds us that we are His. Nothing can separate us from His love. No filth that we get ourselves into can change the fact that we are His children through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus on our behalf. What a great God we serve that we should be called sons and daughters of the Creator of the galaxies! How unfathomable is His love! How gracious of Him to take us back continually and lavish His love on us regardless of our faults and failures!
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners (complete messes!), Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 (italics mine)
It was so encouraging for me to see this illustration so clearly through what the Lord had shown Sonny. How easy it is for us to miss these seemingly small but very important illustrations. My hope is that I can try and slow down throughout my day and ask the Lord to show me more of Himself through every season of life that He takes us through. I'm so thankful for each season- they all have lessons that He's trying to teach us if we will just slow down, ask, and LISTEN! His wisdom is crying out in the streets but we are often so busy and rushed that we can't even hear. Praying that we would HEAR Him each day and grow in intimacy with the Lord who sacrificed Himself on calvary that we might know Him and be known by Him.
Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square
Proverbs 1:20
