How Well Do You Vacuum?

My dear friend Karen loves to hear the noise that dirt and junk makes as it's sucked up into her vacuum cleaner. She LOVES it. The sound of sand, cheerios, and crushed goldfish being swooshed into the vacuum's nether parts makes her swoon.

Me, it makes me feel like my house is dirty, and I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping it clean.

Yes, I know my sanity is in question. I'm vacuuming. I'm cleaning. I'm getting rid of the dirt. Why do I feel like I've done something wrong?

When Karen shared her joyful vacuuming with me this summer, I decided I was going to celebrate just about every noise my vacuum cleaner makes. Except those times I suck up Lego's and socks.

So while I was celebrating all the noise as I vacuumed the kitchen today, I had an epiphany.

Prayer is like vacuuming. God wants all our dirt. He's excited when it pours out of us. It's a way of keeping my relationship with him open and free. He can take my sin, dirt, and lukewarm spirituality. He delights in cleaning up all the bad stuff and creating a shiny new me!


Sometimes when things aren't going well in our lives or our prayer life has stalled we just try to avoid God. We avoid opening up to him. I might think about praying but instead find 15 other things to do. We're mistaken that we need to fix/clean up ourselves before we approach God. I don't need to hide and worry about what God will find in me. Even better, He wants me to give it up to him. He has an endless supply of new vacuum cleaner bags. His grace will always be big enough for me. He simply wants the opportunity to share it.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and
this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8

I also really like Psalm 32. It covers the whole range of feeling of approaching God as we are.
I'm headed back to mop now. Washing my floors and my cleaning my soul at the same time. And I didn't think I liked housework. :-)