A Good Hot Shower

A Good Hot Shower
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:25-26

I could not wait to get out of my sweaty, nasty, dirt soaked clothes. I had been working in the yard for hours pulling weeds, tilling flower beds, and planting new perennials. The Florida humidity had made me hot, grumpy and tired.

In the shower, the grime began to melt off my skin and swirl down the drain as the hot water drummed across my back. Grabbing a clean towel as I stepped from the shower, I breathed in the fresh scent of Tide laundry detergent and Downy fabric softener. I inhaled the clean fragrance deeply through my nose fully enjoying the fresh smell. I pulled on a clean shirt and shorts leaving my stinky, sweaty work clothes crumpled on the floor at my feet.

I don’t know about you, but for me a good hot shower after a sweaty work out or day of grueling yard work is a gift. There is something almost magical about the way a shower feels when you are coated with salty sweat and caked in soil. The dirtier I am, the longer I tend to linger under the cleansing spray of my Delta shower-head.

Believe it or not, my internal spirit can get just as grimy and gritty as my outside skin. Things like bitterness, gossip, pride, disobedience and selfishness build up within me making my heart stiff and crusty like my boys’ leather batting gloves at the end of the baseball season. The once pliable leather gloves become cracked, brittle and unyielding as a season of sweat dries inside of them. The once new gloves have to be thrown away and replaced by new ones the next season.

In the same way, sin makes my heart stiff and unyielding towards the things of God. And, just like it takes a hot shower to melt the grime off my body, God uses His word to scrub the filth from my heart. The crustier my heart the longer it takes and the more elbow grease He has to use to make my heart pliable again.

Ezekiel 36:24-28 promises us that God will cleanse us and give us a new heart. He won’t let us stay stinky forever. He will remove the hurts that have hardened us and will make us supple again like new leather gloves or freshly washed clothes. He will do whatever it takes make us clean again and in right relationship with Him. And, just as I would never think of putting back on my dirty work clothes after my shower, He won’t let us go back to the way we were. He will replace our selfishness ambition with the will to walk in His ways. 
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Are you feeling a little bit grimy and gritty today? Step into the shower of God’s grace. Allow his presence to wash over you revitalizing your spirit with the fresh fragrance of His mercy. Then wrap yourself in the freshly laundered linens of His love and get ready to start fresh again.

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