One day I was at my dad’s house discussing the lint trap on his dryer. I said to him, “My dryer doesn’t have a lint trap.” Bragging that my dryer was obviously far more advanced and sophisticated then his. He very confidently tells me it does but I continue to assure him it didn’t and it was just a fancy one that must vaporize the lint itself. He told me to go home and look on the top of the dryer and find it. He even bet me money it was there.
I went home totally pumped to prove him wrong and to congratulate my dryer for being superior to all the other dryers. I go to the laundry room and investigate my dryer and then cringe at the sight of this little handle looking thing on top. I give it a tug and it wiggles a bit but is kind of stuck. So I give it a yank and out comes this full sized, neatly woven, shag carpet.
Okay let’s pause here and look at the situation… I’ve been married a couple of years by now and have had a couple children. The dryers we had growing up ALWAYS had the lint trap in the door of the dryer. Never on top!!! So who’s to blame here? My parents for assuming I had common sense? Or the dryer manufacturers for changing things up???
Once the lint was removed from my dryer it started to dry my clothes in a much shorter cycle. I hadn’t even realized the drying cycle had gotten longer, little by little but it definitely had.
Un-confessed sin is like a stuffed lint trap. If you aren’t regularly cleaning out the “lint trap” gradually you stop working at full capacity. It’s easy to deny you have any sin in your life. Or maybe you think sin looks one way so you assume you don’t have any. But trust me, you have a lint trap!
Psalms 139:23-24 “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
God wants us to confess our sins so we can work the way He designed us to work.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
My poor little dryer was working harder then it needed to. It was still managing to dry my clothes but if I would have just searched harder for a lint trap, I could have had dry clothes in a more efficient time frame.
God is merciful and patient but I want to work better! I don’t want to wait until a giant carpet of tightly woven sin is stifling my effectiveness for the kingdom of God. So today right here, I confess all my sins to you…
Ha! You wish! But I do want to make a new commitment of asking God to search my heart and revealing any offensive way in me more regularly. I know I have a lint trap and am vulnerable to build up if I don’t. It’s hard to believe that I’m not a fancier model that just automatically vaporizes sin but it’s true.
“Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper,
but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” Proverbs 28:13
Basically Right 