Fixer Upper 2 – Bathroom: Our Private Lives
When you invite people over you normally do not invite them into the bathroom. If you go look at a house you don’t go directly to the bathroom. I mean after all you want to see the kitchen, living room or backyard. Nobody really thinks “Wonder how that bathroom is in the house?” With that being said, we don’t realize how important the bathroom is until we seriously need one. Then all of the sudden the couch in the living room is not really that important. Nothing like standing on the wrong side of door to realize just how important a bathroom can be.
The bathroom is a place that we hope is private. I still don’t understand why women sometimes go to the bathroom together. If one of my friends said, “Hey come and go to the bathroom with me”, I would tell him he was crazy. In the bathroom we take of ourselves before anyone else sees us at all. If we take a few minutes to just sort of sit in the bathroom I would like for us to think about our private lives.
Baths, they were and are the worst things for a boy growing up. I loved playing outside all day and coming in just dirty and worn out from the fun we had. Then it was bath time. I didn’t really argue about it but I never understood why I had to bathe every day. We bathed because we did not want to be the stinky kid in school. Our parents did not want to be those parents either. We got clean because it was what we need to do so people could actually be near us and not be overwhelmed by our stink.
It is the same with our lives today. In Proverbs 28:13 it reads, “You can’t whitewash your sins and get by with it; you find mercy by admitting and leaving them.” We need to realize that we need to come clean in our spirit as well as our bodies. I have always wondered about confession. We were told as kids that you better confess everything and if you forget something you will be in big trouble. I laid awake at night thinking about my day and the sins I committed. Then worried about the sins I forgot or didn’t know about that I had not confessed and would I be not accepted by God because of them.
Then I began to grow up and think through what confession really is. I mean if I pray and confess do I ever surprise God? Does he look and say “Wow I didn’t see that one. Thanks for being honest.” No confession is not for God. He does not need us to list our sins, He sees them. Confession, I believe, is for me not for God. It is the chance for me to come clean. It is a chance to remove the stink of my sin from my life. To get a fresh start to my day and just restart my spirit. It is a chance to have a feeling that I can make a new start without a stink hanging over me. The first thing we get to do is to clean up and move forward with our day.
There is a time also that we need to hear from God. We need a place to spend time with the Bible. It is a chance to gain wisdom that transcends our own time. It is full of wisdom that has changed lives for centuries. The Bible describes people who spend time with God’s word this way in Psalm 1:2: “They love the LORD’s teachings, and they think about those teachings day and night.” That is why it helps to read it every day. I use the app from Youversion to keep up with my time with God. If I miss reading it the first thing in the morning it sends me a text to remind me to spend some time reading God’s word. The other thing I learned is that if I memorized the verses I could be reminded throughout the day of some wisdom I needed. Those verses jump up and remind me from time to time about what I should be doing. That is the power of taking the time to check in with the Bible and think about what you read throughout the day.
The bathroom is also the place to “put your face on” for the day. I don’t have to look long at myself in the mirror to know there is not a whole lot I could do with a face like mine. But still though, I do stop in the morning to check my heart and attitude. Proverbs 4:32 from the Message says, “Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts.” Do we ever consider how our inside looks? The world has taught us to be concerned about our appearance. The right clothes, the right hairstyle and make up. There just does not seem to be a much thought given to our inner life. Part of getting ready for the day should be a self-assessment of our heart and attitude. How are my thoughts lining up with a verse like, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Are we ready to step into the world and be a more loving person?
Am I ready to face the things that will change today and go against my plan? Can I not totally lose our stuff when something goes wrong or someone disappoints us? That is part of this morning. The one thing I truly can choose each day is simply this: my attitude. I face it with a grit and determination to not let what happens to me change who I will be or treat others. It is simply aligning our hearts with God’s desires for each day. Just a few minutes a day to make sure it is all good with us and those around us.
Why is important to worry so much about our private lives? Think about what goes on in a bathroom. What if you rather than flush some of that stuff you put it in a bag and carried it around for the day. Think about it. After a short time you would really start to stink and people would probably stay away from you. That is why we need to take some time to flush yesterday’s disappointments, hurts and failures. If you carry them with you then you are going to end up with just a crappy attitude and heart. The Bible says several times that what is done in private is revealed in the public life. So what do you want revealed about you? What if we took the time to prepare our hearts and minds before we left the “bathroom” in the morning? How much could a few minutes change our day or our life? Guess we’ll have to stop for a few to see.