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Ministry

From the Minister’s Desk:

SPRING CLEANING

I have had to admit that I can be a pretty messy person. I don’t think I’m chronically messy. I try to keep things organized, orderly and clean but there are a lot of times when I just let things go. We got a fancy espresso maker that as a gift about 5 years ago. For the longest time I tried to be oh-so-careful while filling the grounds cup to ensure that I didn’t spill any on the counter. This is not only to be clean and tidy but to also save as much of the stuff as possible since I tend to buy the more expensive organic-free trade-shade grown-mountain side-vegetarian grounds. I tried to be clean and tidy but it seemed that no matter how much care I exercised in making my coffee there would always be some unintentional bump on the cup or the scoop and some black grains would spread across the kitchen counter.

Now, the machine has developed some leak somewhere in its innards so that a slow stream of water seeps out onto the counter during operation. This tends to meet the spilled grounds and an ugly puddle forms. I try to be neat and tidy but I just can’t help ending up with a mess.

Lately, though, I’ve decided not to stress out over the mess so much. Maybe I’m older or wiser or maybe I just don’t care anymore but I know that’s not it. I’ve decided not to stress out about it because I know that I can just clean up the mess before anyone else notices it. If I can make a mess – I can clean up a mess.

All too often we get upset and stressed over the messes in our lives. That’s only natural for us, as we want things to be neat and tidy and orderly in our lives. The thing is life is not neat and tidy and orderly. Things happen in our lives and in our world that are messy. People get angry. People lose things. People get sick. People make mistakes. Well, we can clean it up. People can forgive. People can heal. People can apologize.

I think we are much happier when we stop expecting a perfect, neat and tidy world and accept the messiness of life. Then we can focus on cleaning things and making things better – cleaner.

 God wants this. 1st John 1:9 states, “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” It’s spring cleaning time. We can clean up the winter messes from our yards, garages, attics and coffee counters. We should also take some time to clean up our spirits, our relationships with God and neighbours and our relationship with ourselves. God wants us clean and he can make us so.

Rev. Scott Sinclair