Green and Fuzzy
I believe cleaning our refrigerator would make a good Alfred Hitchcock movie. Think about it: For some unknown reason, we clean our fridge at night. Picture the kitchen with the lights turned off. Creepy music begins to play. We zoom toward the appliance and slowly open the door… it creaks and the light flickers. We pull the milk out and set it aside – we will sniff it later to see if it is good. Next, we pull out the soda and the OJ.
Now the music builds. Drums are added for effect and we realize our heart is racing with the beat. The fridge light flickers again… funny though, it never flickers during the day.
Why did we choose to clean the fridge at night anyway?
We reach our hand in… steady… steady… we reach way in the back… where there is a bowl. As we grip the bowl, sweat pours from our body and our breath is caught in our throat. What will be in the bowl?
We pull our prize from the safety of the flickering light and we stand, alone, in the dark kitchen with this mysterious, unknown entity in the bowl. We take a cautious step toward the sink. Our hand trembles and the contents of the bowl seem to shift. Was it because of our trembling or is it alive?
We reach the sink and turn on the light overhead. We should be safe here… the garbage disposal is ready to devour whatever alien-like thing is in this bowl. We grasp the lid and take a deep breath. With a flip of the wrist we pop the lid, drop the bowl, then dive to avoid the assault.
There is no assault.
When we peek over the sink edge, there is no alien, just green, fuzzy macaroni and cheese. Now we know our enemy! We stand tall, staring down at the greenish glob of hairy noodles. Ha! We have conquered you! We reach for a spoon to shovel the mess into the disposal when the smell hits us.
As we double over from the noxious fumes, we realize the enemy used smell as a clever secret weapon. Foiled again by those diabolical carbohydrates.
As the smell dissipates, we regain consciousness and return to cleaning the bowl. We rinse the inside, realizing the bowl is useless until we scrub out every germ.
This is the same example used in Bible to refer to our hearts. We find this in Matthew 23:25-28, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence… First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean… You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
This passage was directed at the priests in the temple and refers to the law given by Moses. The teachers focused on the very letter of the law and ignored the intent. The law set forth a standard of actions to portrayed honesty, compassion, love, and dedication. Yet without the feelings and emotions, these actions were empty in the eyes of God.
Proverbs 14:10 and Acts 15:8 tell us that God knows our hearts – He knows the very core of our being. He knows our motivation and drive. He knows when we do something for show and when we do something with honest intent.
This Matthew passage tells us to avoid hypocrisy. Focus on the inside of the cup, which symbolizes our hearts. When we address our motivation in any activity or function and deal with the issues of the heart, our actions are then purified in how we will be driven by our true motivation.
When we find ourselves doing something just for appearances, we have a good exercise in cleaning the inside of the cup. We can examine our motives. Through this process, we gain a better understanding of who we are, what we are doing, and why we are doing it.
This will either give us a passion in our activity, or lead us to do something else… which is rarely going to be cleaning the refrigerator at night.
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Glenn Sasscer
www.glennsasscer.com
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