My least favorite chore is vacuuming.
I actually kind of love cleaning my kitchen and wiping down surfaces and sweeping up crumbs. I like cleaning my bathroom, wiping spots off of the mirror and toothpaste out of the sink. I even kind of like doing laundry, the redundancy of wash, dry, put away, repeat.
I love seeing progress: the dirt wiped away, the counter clean and bright for one, brief moment.
But I hate vacuuming. It takes a whopping amount of energy or motivation for me to lug out our circa 1985 vacuum cleaner, pick up everything off the floor, plug and unplug the vacuum from room to room.
Ugh. It's the worst.
I think that the main reason that I loathe vacuuming so much is because our carpet is awful. It is wrinkly, it is stained, it is ugly. Until we can afford to remove or replace it, we are stuck with it.
Our carpet is so far gone that it is tough to even tell when it has been vacuumed. In essence, it looks dirty no matter how recently it's been cleaned.
Therefore, I don't see any progress or betterment, so it is difficult to enjoy my hard work. Shoot, forget enjoy, it's hard to even justify lugging our vacuum cleaner out of hiding and picking up every toy off of the floor.
Matt doesn't have to help with a single other household chore; if he will just vacuum for me, my heart explodes in star showers of love for him.
At least when I do other household chores, there's an automatic payoff of momentary cleanliness. When I vacuum, I am still looking at ugly. The carpet may BE clean, but if it doesn't LOOK clean, what's the point?
When it comes to growing deeper in my walk with God, I think it can be similar to my vacuuming conundrum.
Whatever progress is made can be indiscernible at times, which makes it tempting to give up or slack off. I often cannot tell that there is a difference in my growth, especially when it feels like I am fighting the same battles daily, weekly, annually. Whats the point? Why lug out the giant vacuum cleaner or the giant study Bible if it makes no difference? If I feel no different? If my struggle feels the same?
For starters, just because something doesn't look clean doesn't mean it isn't. Just because someone doesn't seem clean, doesn't mean she isn't. Psalm 139 makes it beautifully clear that God knows me more than I even know myself. It's a reminder to me that He sees the progress. I was saved and cleaned and made righteous through Jesus' death on the cross. So even when I don't feel it, I can know it is true. 2 Corinthians 5:21 helps me remember, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God"
Secondly, retrospect is a great revealer. I may not feel different day-to-day in my walk with God, but when I look back at where I was 2 years, or 5 years, or 10 years ago, I can see how the incremental shifts have added up to abundant change.
Lastly, I need to remember that I don't read my Bible and pray and seek Him because it helps me to feel a certain way. I do those things because I love Him immensely and I want to know Him more.
If the start of this new year is weighing you down more than anything else, and it feels like some struggles will never fall away and your mess remains, I want to encourage you.
Keep pressing in. Keep seeking Him. Keep your desire for Him alive. Stay faithful and you will become fruitful, as He turns those incremental shifts into abundant change. Do the hard work of lugging that metaphorical vacuum cleaner out of the closet and clean away the mess, even if it feels the same when you're done.
He is working. He sees the change. In Him, you are clean.
"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" - Galatians 6:9
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