Shake off the dust....

I cleaned out a van yesterday. The interesting thing about doing repetitive work like sweeping, is the closer you get to the dirt, the more of it you see. I was shocked at the sheer VOLUME of garbage that collected from a single trip up a mountain. (We had gone on a hike the day before up Bald Mountain.) In the course of my cleaning, I started realizing how the state of our van could so easily relate to my spiritual walk:
1) Things that seem okay in the dark look much different in the LIGHT. (The van looked relatively clean last night in the moonlight, but when I looked at it again this morning, I was shocked by the amount of dirt and dust that had gathered from our single little trip to the bush...like my spiritual junk, I can ignore it and leave it in the dark and pretend it's not there, or I can go take a look at it and decide to do something about it.)
2) The cleanliness of your vehicle depends on ATTENTION to detail. (When I took time to LOOK at the floor, and SEE the dust/garbage, then I started to realize how badly it needed to be swept out.)
3) Your ability to take out the trash depends on what TOOLS you have. (I had to use three different sized brooms in order to get the dirt out as completely as possible...a big one for the big stuff, and a smaller one for the finer dust and hard-to-reach places....like sins, some are obvious and easy to deal with, simply renounce it and move on....other stuff is finer, and sticks in the cracks so you don't see it right away...that stuff takes a lot more time and effort to make sure it's actually out of there.)
4) To keep your 'new' vehicle in 'new' condition, you will need to CONTINUALLY do a cleaning of it. (Like our spirits, even though Christ has given us a NEW heart, we need to continually do a spiritual 'check' to make sure dust hasn't collected in some unsuspecting places...let Jesus show us the trouble areas, and then let Him show us which tools we need in order to clean it thoroughly.)
5) Don't forget to wear protection when getting into the nitty gritty of the dirty work. (Sweeping up dried up mud just blows a cloud of dust back in your face...like dealing with sin, you need to make sure you're spiritually protected or 'covered in the blood' before you do any serious clean-up, because the natural tendency of things that need to get moved is to rebound in your face....I learned that the hard way.)
Finally, I've got this song running through my head;
"Shake off the dust, Rise up and dance again
Wear the garments of splendor, and clothe yourself in strength
Rise up and sing, free the chains from around your neck,
Salvation singing, Salvation sings,
AWAKE daughter of ZION!"

Lord help me to WAKE UP! and shake the dust that's been collecting. Help me do a spring cleaning of my soul so I can be made new again.