I'm the kind who tries to wash up everything as I go when I'm cooking. I don't like dirty dishes to sit real long. They are obnoxious to clean! Our food can be on the table, ready to eat, and I'm still washing up the last of the pots and pans. I think I've become a bit over-the-top obsessed with this practice.
I had a spiritual moment this morning while I was trying to clean a spoon that had baked beans from overnight.....(crock-pot spoon - used to stir the baked beans occasionally). I tried to clean it, but the beans just wouldn't be removed. Time to soak.
Soaking is the best thing for hard to clean foods, like oatmeal, eggs, over-baked casseroles and baked bean spoons.
Ah yes. Came right off after it had soaked a while. I began to think.
I have some areas in my life that are getting a bit dried up these days. I can feel it. I've been here before. It's time for some soaking. Extra time praying, meditating in the Word, worshipping God for who He is, setting my mind on things above. Eventually that dried up state is going to have to slip away from the washing of the Spirit. It can't possibly stay as the soap-suds of the Word clean my heart.
I just came back from CA and the California Women's Retreat. Dr. RoseAnne Coleman http://www.roseannecoleman.com/ and Margaret Feinberg http://www.margaretfeinberg.com/ were the main speakers. Though I led the worship and did a concert I got to do some soaking of my own as these two amazing women spoke.
It rained the first 2 days I was there. Kind of a disappointment. I wanted to see sunny CA! It never occurred to me until this morning (one week later) as I was washing dishes, that maybe the rain was symbolic of the 'soaking' we needed at this conference.
I think we often go to these kinds of things with lots of crud on our spoons. The only way to remove it is to soak in God's presence, which can easily be done at get-away weekends such as this one. Maybe the rain wasn't such a bad thing after all.
When I left the CA soil in my "Alaskan Airliner", the sun was bright. The flowers were blooming and all was well. Maybe for some, as they left the retreat, their flowers were blooming again and their spoons were cleansed from the soaking rain of God's love.
Maybe rain wasn't such a bad thing after all. Soaking rain.
(picture) Dr. RoseAnne Coleman and myself.
