Deep Clean: Drawing the Line

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I used to get asked by mother to clean the kitchen. It was a job I despised. Some of us have had to do that, or do the laundry or clean our room. We all know those irritating jobs that we can always just ‘do later.’ My sister is an advocate for cleaning her room ‘later.’ Come over and you will understand. Sometimes when we were younger my parents would tell us that before we could go out or watch TV or do whatever us kids did we would have to clean our room.

Now I cleaned my room in two different ways. Typically I would throw everything at the bottom of my closet, make my bed and throw all miscellaneous junk into my ‘junk drawer.’ That was it. My mom would come downstairs, give a quick five second inspection, usually be convinced and I would be on my way with my life. How often to we ‘clean up’ like this in our Christian lives. God tells us to love our neighbors, so when we run into the people we don’t like we’ll smile and tell them their sweater looks nice or maybe we’ll even go as far as carrying on a conversation. We feel lead to start reading your bible for devotion so we’ll read a few verses, pray for a few minutes and then carry on with our comfortable sleep. We know we shouldn’t be dating a girl so we’ll loose the technical title, but we’ll still hang out with them alone, ‘struggle’ with trying to stop kissing them and talk to them on the phone every night.

By outward appearance all these things look great. Sure, you love the person; you even talk to them when you don’t have to. Sure you do devotions, your bible lives beside your bed. Sure you broke up with her; ask anyone, no one will say you’re dating. By outward appearance, my room was clean. Take a peak in my room, guaranteed it looked spotless.

Sometimes I would get an urge to really clean my room. I would clean my sheets. I would pull everything out of my closet and junk drawers and organize it all and get rid of the stuff I didn’t need. I would dust my 1993 soccer trophies and straighten the picture of me and Phil sitting on my porch with rollerblades on. I would pull out the vacuum and even take off the extra nozzle to get into the corners. My mom would walk in my room, give a quick five second inspection, be convinced and then I would get on with my life.

What’s the difference? My mom reacted the same both times. The difference lies in the cleanliness of my room. In the first attempt to clean, whether my mom nodded in approval or not I was still living in filth. I wasn’t really doing what she wanted me to do; I wasn’t really obeying. I find we as Christians tend to ‘draw this line.’ We tell ourselves that as long as we can convince someone or even ourselves that it’s good enough then we can stop there.

It’s kind of like the question that you hear in almost every dating relationship, ‘how far is too far?’ If you are even asking that question, you’ve missed it completely. If you are trying to figure out how you can just get by with cleaning your room so you can go out and play, the child has missed the point. If we are trying to stay as close to the girl as possible without dating her, or if we are trying to just make sure we open that bible once a day, or if we are trying to make sure that we just make it in the doors of church for a service a week, or if we are trying to just say hi to someone so we can say we are trying, then we’ve missed the point completely. If you are asking how far is too far in regards to your physical relationship you’ve missed the point.

The point is, God wants our room clean. He wants a full-out deep clean of our room too. He wants us to go overboard. You know at work how there is always that guy who just does absolutely everything. The manager doesn’t have to ask him to do things all the time, he’s just doing them. He will probably end up being the manager one day. If he is asked to do something, he does it so unbelievably well and does a few extra things too. Then there are the types that are so annoying to work with. They have to be asked to do everything. Even the things that they already know they should do. They stand around, usually whistle, crack jokes and are slow to get the job done.

I want to be the first kind. I want to be the type of servant that serves God beyond the call of duty. I don’t want to be the type that draws a line and tries to inch closer and closer to that line. I want to be the type that doesn’t even know a line exists because my focus and desire isn’t on the line at all; it’s so far in the other direction that I can’t even comprehend a line. I want to be the kind of Christian who serves God and people that when I’m asked to go one mile I go two, or maybe three. God help us all desire to go three miles instead of trying to figure out if there is anyway to go half a mile.