Cleaning up

I have been watching the Kreepy doing its job of cleaning the pool for quite a while. From the photo below you will notice what I have been observing - that there are a few areas that the Kreepy is avoiding. No matter how long it runs, it manages to skirt around these areas leaving them untouched - as if those areas did not exist. That got me thinking about how there are areas in our lives that we ignore - things that we refuse to deal with, pretending that they do not exist - even denying that they could possibly be there. Although we skirt around them and even perhaps imagine that they are invisible - it is clear to onlookers that those areas are desperately in need of attention. Throwing a handful of chlorine onto the dirt may create a little patch of white on the brown in the pool, but when the chlorine is dissolved in the water, the brown is the same as ever. In the same way, we may say that Christ has forgiven our sins, but if we do not attend to the transformation of our behaviour or attitudes, the 'dirt' is visible to those around us even though we may deny its presence and effect in our lives.

The remedy for the pool is to shorten the hose between the Kreepy and the pump so that it cannot skirt those dirty areas so easily, and also to stir up the dirt by brushing it and spreading it around to that it will be sucked up from a wider area. In the same way the dirt within may need to be stirred up and disseminated into smaller bits that can be dealt with progressively and systematically - but the most important of all is to shorten the distance between us and our 'pump' - the One who exchanges death for life. We then find that dealing with the unattractive in our lives is not such a daunting task after all - and the onlookers will celebrate with us as our lives are transformed to sparkling clarity.