Mr. Clean

"To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before." Could be the voice of Captain Kirk describing the five year mission of the Starship Enterprise, ... or me, talking to myself in my kitchen Saturday morning.

We were having a problem with our refrigerator, which necessitated pulling it out of its little nesting place, and cleaning places which contained the raw material for God to fashion mankind and maybe a few new civilizations. We don't have a large kitchen, so I literally had to climb over a cabinet to get behind the refrigerator. That didn't really solve the problem; we had to dismantle parts of the freezer, and ended up cleaning the whole refrigerator. So I was in the zone, and decided to clean the rest of the kitchen.

About six months ago, a friend of mine told me about a cleaning product that amazed her, called Mr.Clean Magic Eraser. She told me that it was a special kind of sponge, which really did totally erase dirt from surfaces with relatively no scrubbing, using nothing but water. I respected her opinion enough to go buy it, but then I stuck in under the sink, and forgot about it. Till Saturday, when I needed to clean. I tried it on the wall behind the stove, which was spashed with dried-on spaghetti sauce and who knows what else. And, I was amazed. The spots came right off! With no effort. I was motivated to try it on other things, and found that it expunged everything! And because it's a sponge, it even gets into those hard to reach places, nooks, and crannies. Wow! Is my kitchen clean!

Several years ago, I took a class at my church about discovering my spiritual gifts. I'm sad to say that 'evangelism' was not one of my stronger gifts. However, truthfully, as I was cleaning, I was thinking how my adventure with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is a word-picture for understanding the gift of salvation. My friend had told me of an amazing cleaning tool, but it did me no good, until I actually opened the package and used it! I don't mean to be frivolous or irreverent, comparing God to a cleaning product. But I mentally related to people who have heard about Jesus and who know what Good Friday and Easter 'mean', but they keep 'it' under the sink, and don't open and avail themselves to His Gift to cleanse their soul, to be set free, and to be made new. They know He's 'there', but they don't know what they're missing.

A few months ago, my mother-in-law told me to try Lime Away, for those hard-water stains. I have some Lime Away, too... under the sink. Gonna try it. Who knows what thoughts that will spur?

There's still time to clean before Easter.