Grace and Dirty Dishes

Two years ago, I was watching my Youth Pastor’s kids while he and his wonderful wife were in Israel. Whenever I spend a lot of time with young kids, I remember so much of what I was like when I was really little – and what things must have looked like through my parents’ eyes.

One instance of this happened one night while the youngest boy, Caleb, and I were doing dishes. I was wiping up the counter and picking up around the kitchen when I turned to see him washing a big cookie pan. Well, Caleb is a bit over four feet tall, so he’s probably just head and shoulders bigger than sink level – not so good if you are washing a pan with a very large surface area. I started to smile as I watched this whole event unfold.

Now I have washed a few dishes in my short life, and I can see what is going to happen. The pan was beginning to fill with water and tip. Sure enough – SPLOOSH – the water in the pan was too much for it to handle and it tips and pours water all over. Luckily, Caleb has the reflexes of a cat and jumped out of the way before the water could touch anymore than his shoes.

Chuckling to myself, I grabbed a couple towels from the drawer, handed him one and helped him clean up the lake that had suddenly appeared on the kitchen floor.

Later the day I was thinking about the whole situation – and getting another chuckle out of it as I remembered how many times I had done the same thing – and I was reminded of how often God must chuckle at us when we have situations like that. God can see all – he can see everything that is going to happen before it does, not just with dishes. He knows the decisions and situations we face and what we can choose to do in them. Then he’s there to help us clean up when we screw up. 

Now, perhaps if Caleb had emptied the pan of water before it got to the point of overflowing that would not have happened. Perhaps if I had warned him that was going to happen – rather than smile to myself as I watched – he may have done things differently – maybe he wouldn’t have. No matter what, it still happened.

We still make wrong decisions. We still screw up. We still let the water overflow on us. And God is still there to help us clean it up – even though, if we may have listened to Him it could have been avoided in the first place. That’s grace for you.

“When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulties, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not by burned up; the flames will not consume you.[…] Others died that you might live, I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored and I love you.”

 

~Isaiah 43:2,4