The same thing happens every time after a meal. I come with a warm cloth and she twists her little body as far as she can to get away from me. She’s strapped into her highchair and can’t go anywhere, but she hangs her arms and face over the far side, hoping she is out of reach. Every now and then she glances back to check if I am still standing there. I humour her for a moment and then call her name gently and reach over to wipe the first hand.
The thought crosses my mind that we are like her when we have sinned. We make a mess and God is the only one who can clean us up, but we avoid Him and deny our need to be cleaned. We turn as far from Him as we can, trying to escape His attention and desperately hoping to avoid the process. It’s rather silly, because God is present with us and the clean-up is inevitable (if we are serious about our Christianity). Our choice is how we engage the process: loudly protesting or with willing eagerness to be clean.
One day when Hannah is older, she will hopefully change her perception of the process of wiping her hands and face. She may never enjoy it, but she will understand the purpose of cleaning so that she can play with her toys and other exciting activities. I could leave Hannah to go about her playtime with food on her fingers and face, but it would wreck some of her toys, her clothes, and it could get into her eyes. Other people would not want to go near her.
Perhaps we need a shift in our perspective of repentance. We may think of it as an unpleasant task to be endured. We procrastinate and justify our actions and when we eventually come around to it, we drag our feet. But repentance brings with it joy! The joy of being clean from the mess of the past. The joy of moving forward and engaging in other exciting adventures. Repentance is a gift. We ask and God answers. In His love He responds with forgiveness, wiping us clean from the sin that affects us and wrecks relationships. There is a solemnity about repentance, for we are grieved by our actions. But we simultaneously step forward into freedom and celebrate the goodness of our God who loves us too much to leave us in our sin. This is good news!
May you come to recognise the joy in repentance. May you stop “hiding” like Hannah tries to do. May you recognise where you try to justify, deny, and minimise sin, and instead bring it before God openly. May you submit to His cleaning process. There is no mess too big for Him to clean up; no sin too big for Him to forgive.
