Finding Faith in the Clean Towels

Yesterday my 5 year old was helping me with the laundry, her job is to bring down the empty basket for the clean laundry. When she gets that done, she’s allowed to put in the scoop of laundry soap in for the next load to go in the washer.

On this particular occasion, I beat her down the stairs and by the time she was hitting the last step I had half of the wet laundry in the dryer. The other half still sat in the bottom of the washer waiting patiently for its turn to hop in the dryer and get tossed around. My big helper asked if she could put the little scoop of laundry soap in the washer. When I told her no, she protested, “But Mommy I always put in the laundry soap, why can’t I?” Then she proceeded to grab the scoop and fill it with the white granules and head for the open washer.

“No!” I shouted. She stopped and looked at me with moist eyes and started to whimper. To her, it looked like the washer was empty and there was no reason not to put the soap in. I said, “Sometimes there are things that you just can’t see, and you just have to trust me!” My words stopped me. More often than not I demanded a reason why before I would comply with a request, now I was asking her to just trust me. I couldn’t help thinking about how many times God asked me to do something for Him, to trust Him with the situation, and I’d respond with a request for conformation before I would take action. Sometimes I’d do the exact opposite of what He was asking me to do. Then when my defiance had made a mess of things, I’d pray to be rescued.

How many times has God asked for our obedience and we gave Him defiance? When is the last time He gently reminded you that He sees more than you do? Do we respond by picking up the scoop of soap and tossing it in the tub, or do we follow orders like Joshua did when he marched around the city of Jericho. Blowing those trumpets and screaming must have looked completely irrational to those looking on, but Joshua’s obedience was rewarded by complete victory without a single Hebrew casualty. Had he attacked Jericho with might, there most certainly would have been a mess to clean up, and I don’t think a little scoop of laundry detergent would have helped.