Filthy!

This evening I am having a group of ministers' wives over at our home...so I have several things to do to get my house ready. The boys wanted to play outside, so I told them they could with one simple instruction..."DON'T GET DIRTY!" The last thing I needed was two muddy boys to bathe and another load of laundry before this evening. I was working in the kitchen and peeked out several times to check on them (they were in eyesight)...everything was fine. Until I turned around and looked out the last time and saw them smearing mud all over their truck! I thought my eyes were deceiving me, so I walked out to be certain. Two boys looked up at me with smiles of excitement on their faces, "Look mom! We made our truck muddy!" I immediately told them to get inside, leave their boots outside, strip their clothes right inside the door...(I knew I'd blog about this because in the midst of this God gave me a calm and taught me a lesson about myself, too! I wanted so badly to take a picture of them but also knew that would give them the idea that I thought it was cute. So I snapped a few of their clothes and truck while they were napping...it's hard to tell from the pictures exactly how dirty they really were!) I asked them what they had been told before they went outside, and they both knew. Then I talked to them about why they were in trouble and ahem... "administered discipline." Straight from the door to the bathtub they went where I cleaned them up, redressed them and laid them down for an early nap.What God showed me through this was that we, His children, are the same way! He has given us rules to live by for specific reasons. We however get distracted by all the "mud" around us, and it seems like it would be okay to "play in the mud" just a little as long as we don't get dirty. Before long, we're so comfortable in the mud that we forget what our Father told us. And what we don't realize is that it is impossible to play in mud or sin and come out clean! Our Father cares about us and lovingly watches all that we do, and when He finds us filthy in sin, He will discipline us. We pout and whine and try to reason why it was okay. We can't understand why "God is mad at us." We don't realize that His discipline is not because He's mad at us, but because that's what loving parents do. Have you ever been around an undisciplined child? It's not a pretty sight! So He disciplines us, sometime as gently as a word from Bible that convicts our hearts and sometimes it requires stronger discipline, like trials and difficult circumstances in our lives. But our Father doesn't leave us dirty and disciplined, He mercifully cleans us up and restores us when we allow Him to. Yes, I was upset with my children's actions today, but I don't love them any less...can you imagine how much greater is the perfect love of God, our Heavenly Father? I pray that today, wherever you find yourself, in perfect obedience to your Father or filthy in the mud of sin, that you will thank Him for His matchless love and if need be, allow Him to get you cleaned up!