Boys and Soap

Alright, I must confess that with our move there is one bathroom in our house that has been neglected...the boy's bathroom. It is downstairs near their room and over the past month I have overlooked it, not intentionally, but life is busy with seven children and many boxes to unpack.

A few days ago I decided to conquer the bathroom. I donned latex gloves and gathered my cleaning supplies. I tackled the sink first and then went on to clean the shower. To my surprise there was no soap. It wasn't that the soap had been all used up...there was no evidence that soap had ever been in the shower!

I called two of my preteen boys to the bathroom. "Where is the soap you have been using during the past month?" Their response was simply, "There wasn't any in there so we didn't use any." My mouth dropped open as I said, "You haven't used any soap in a month!?" They just shrugged their shoulders and smiled. I quickly opened the bathroom closet door and showed them the two neatly boxed bars of soap just waiting to be used.

"When you take a shower use soap...every time. If it is gone ask me and I will get you some more." They nodded, smiled and left the bathroom. I thought, "Surely my teenage son has his own soap that he has stashed away after each shower." After the same line of questioning I discovered the results were the same...no soap!

Isn't is interesting? For a whole month they have simply rinsed off and thought it was good enough. They knew about the soap because they are the ones that actually put it in the closet after I bought it. They have been taught how to take a shower but they didn't take the time to go to the closet, open the door, take out the box of soap, put it in the shower and use it.

Hmmm...I wonder how much of my life has been similar this past month regarding my time with the Lord. I know I need time with God, I know where my Bible is, I know what I need to do in order to have a "quiet" time in my home but somehow the distractions of life have crept into my life. Okay, I haven't gone a whole month without a quiet time, but I also haven't spent the time bathing in the Word of God and letting His Spirit cleanse me from the inside out. More often than not I've had a "rinsing" rather than a "cleansing". So often I've gone through the motions to check it off my list, rather than going with a heart ready to hear from the Lord.

I'm not thankful that my boys have gone so long without a proper scrubbing, but I am thankful for the ways that God uses the ordinary things of this life to teach me more about Himself. We all learned a lesson from this one!