By DANNY MINTON

If you’ve ever sent your kids off to summer camp, you know the apprehension of releasing them to be on their own that first time. I remember the story of a mother who sent her daughter, Janie, off to camp for the first time, and after the return home, she complained to the mother of her daughter’s best friend, Mindy.

“When Janie came home, you should have seen her suitcase. Every piece of clothing came back filthy and smelly. It took me forever to get all the sand out of her bag, and I had to air it out for two days because of mildew from wet towels. It was just terrible.”

Mindy’s mother listened to her friend and stood silently for a few moments before speaking. “When Mindy came home,” her mother said, ” I opened her suitcase, and nothing had been touched for the whole week!”

Now ask yourself which was worse, a little girl trying to keep clean but at the same time getting all her clothes filthy or a little girl staying dirty all week without trying to be clean? I think it’s obvious that, as parents, we’d much rather have a messy suitcase arrive back from camp than one untouched!

Sin and prayer in our lives is much the same way. We do wrong, then go and ask God for forgiveness. He forgives us. Then we do wrong and go back to Him again. Again and again and again, we go through the process of throwing our dirty laundry in and getting clean again.

Then there are those who continue in the wrongful ways of the world, never taking the time to repent and turn back to God. Eventually, their lives become so dark that they forget God is still there to cleanse them.

Which do you think God would rather see? The answer is obvious; He wants us all to keep coming back to him. And we can leave our dirty laundry with Him every time we do, and He’ll send us away clean. In his second letter, 3:9, Peter wrote, “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

God realizes that life is full of times when the clothes of our life get dirty. He wants us to know that He is always around to clean us up and make us fresh again. 

So now let me ask you, “How does your suitcase look?”

Danny Minton is a former Elder and minister at Southern Hills Church of Christ