Over the summer, one of our cats, whom I will affectionately refer to as the spawn of Satan, decided to relieve itself in the corner of our attic—the same room where I have my quiet time.

Believe me, I was meditating on some imprecatory psalms for a couple of days as we tried chemical upon chemical to clean up the area and eliminate the smell.
 
Allow me to share a small sample of those verses:

“Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” Psalm 137:8-9

He’s incapable of having infants, so I would have been happy to make it him receiving the due punishment for his crimes. The jury is still debating the ‘final solution’ to this issue.

Anyways, we decided that we should go ahead and do a major cleaning of the entire room, which morphed into the entire house. We started in the attic and worked our way down to the basement. We even did the steps and area rugs to get everything cleaned. It was quite the undertaking.

By the way, this was the first time we’ve cleaned the carpets since we moved in…nine years ago.

We had not made it half-way across the attic when we looked down at the used water and noticed how absolutely BLACK it was. I thought we had struck oil. It was truly a ‘black as sin’ moment.

It got me thinking about how God works in our life when it comes to cleansing and forgiveness. I think many people tend to view forgiveness as the equivalent of running the vacuum cleaner over the rug, and letting the heavier and nastier stuff remain buried and out of sight. We can quickly snag the quick messes, and the rest we leave for another day. But over time, more and more junk collects under the fibers, and over time the reality is that we’re standing on some pretty heavy messes that haven’t been cleaned up, leaving behind stains or other damage that permeates a lingering presence.

But God is not in the business of minimal effort, sweeping things under the rug, or minimizing the work needed to clean up. He runs the spiritual equivalent of the Rug Doctor over our lives, pulling out the stuff trapped below the surface, deeply scrubbing the old stains and lingering crud that has built up over time. Forgiveness for Him is total, but the process is comprehensive as well. He wants us examining everything that qualifies, not just the convenient stuff. It will be an involved work to be sure—but if it is, then the forgiveness can be experienced as comprehensive and total as well.

You know what is an indicator to me that God is drawing out something He wants me to die to my flesh on? I feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, disturbed, or anxious about it. That’s a good indicator that it’s an area I need to examine and ask if God is revealing this to experience the cleansing of my soul.

Francois Fenelon, Bishop of Cambrai in the sixteenth century, once wrote: “It is a good sign of real, God-produced humility when we are no longer shocked by the corrections of others, nor by the resistance within.”

As I allow the Spirit to examine me, if I am resistant or hesitant, or react with agitated emotions, then it’s a pretty good suspicion God is pulling out of me the dark trash that He no longer wants to see hidden in the strands of the carpet of my heart.

After we finished cleaning the carpet that day, we could see the different right away. The attic seemed brighter, as if the carpet was about a shade lighter than earlier in the day. In the same way, God’s cleansing and forgiveness allows us to see our lives as brighter and better.

For those of us in small group communities - See if you can pray for your group, and facilitate this during your times together: to be a place where the thorough healing and cleansing of our hearts can happen, as God greatly desires to initiate.

May your group be a place of great transformation as we experience the presence of God among us.