Do you want to know my favorite cleaning tip for when you just don’t want to clean your house?!
Invite someone over!
???? It’s foolproof! Instead of a big open-ended never-finished task, you’ve now placed a deadline, and then you just magically get it done in whatever time you have!
To all my friends, yes, this is honestly why I like hosting play dates at our house so much. #truestory
Because I am a procrastinator!
So what’s so wrong about procrastinating our repentance?
First of all, we don’t know when the deadline is.
We have no clue when all this repenting needs to be complete. And so we can’t wait until right before the deadline, because then we’d probably miss it.
But much more importantly, what does repentance mean?
To change.
And God doesn’t want us to wait to change.
Because that’s literally why we are here on earth!
I’m actually working on getting better at doing small cleaning habits so that I don’t even have to rush before friends come over.
And I’m getting better and better at doing that! Taking care of little messes as soon as they happen, cleaning up toys as we go, doing dishes more often… those little things all add up to not needing to scramble as much when someone comes over.
And that’s what we really want in our spiritual lives, right?
Making small little daily changes in order to just be more spiritually mature as we go, instead of trying to “grow up” later.
Seeing sin that has taken root and doing the daily maintenance to keep it at bay.
Or when things get really bad, and our lives need a “deep clean” – we just get it done. We scrub the baseboards and the corners and the back of the fridge.
Instead of sitting with the weight of feeling dirty, we realize we have the agency to start casting off that weight and moving toward freedom and cleanliness. We rely fully upon the Savior for his cleansing power, but we have the agency to START that process.
Little sins, big sins, bad habits, weaknesses…
It’s an everyday maintenance.
And I think that when we realize this, it makes the Sacrament that much more meaningful.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
6 Responses
Fun! Insightful as always! Thank you for making almost every day a brighter one!
Thank you! <3
my mother taught me that, “It’s easier to keep it clean than to get it clean.” Meaning daily maintenance and cleaning truly is easier than deep cleaning for a entire day.
Same principle applies to our spiritual side. Life’s easier to handle when we feed and care for our spirit a little everyday with prayer, reading, reflection, instead of starving all week, becoming spiritually weak during that time, and overwhelming our spirit one day a week.
Establishing that daily habit early simply helps us in the long-term. Sunday school, seminary, missions all reinforce this recommended life style.
I love that! Same rules for both cleaning and living the gospel!
Just want you to know how much your daily snippets help me. They encourage me to dig a little deeper and look at the scriptures from a different angle and your insights are spot on. I teach Gospel Doctrine and we are still doing lessons through Zoom. Your “snippets” give me lots of food for thought and I often include your ideas in my lessons. Thank you so much!!
You are too kind, thank you!