Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Psalm 51:2
When the boys rinse out their dishes in the sink, they tend to forget to finish the job, which is rinsing out the sink. A few hours after their breakfast I was met with a dried, hard to scrub, mess in the sink. The job that could’ve been done in seconds took minutes to deal with. Partly doing a task is not really doing the task at all. They’re still young and maturity will help teach the importance of being thorough in jobs. As they get older, they won’t be so rushed to move on to the next thing.
The opposite of my boys is my dad. When he has a job to do, he wants to make sure he works at it to the best of his ability. Whatever he’s doing is done the right way…my dad’s way. He’s systematic and very detail oriented. He taught me to measure twice and cut once. When building his deck he made every whole exactly so far from the one before it and made sure to countersink his screws. It looked beautiful and it still looks like new because of the thoroughness of the job and how he still takes care of it.
The character trait for today is Thoroughness-knowing what factors will diminish the effectiveness of my work or words, if neglected (definition from characterfirst.com).
Another project that my dad worked on was with concrete. Concrete is the perfect example for showing the importance of thoroughness. The ingredients are pretty simple with a bag of concrete mix and water, but the effectiveness of the concrete will be compromised if you neglect to thoroughly mix the right amount of water. When there isn’t enough water, the particles won’t stick together. When there’s too much water, you’ll have soupy concrete which makes for easier pouring, but will weaken the concrete and it will be more likely to crack. Then, a bigger problem will show up later that will take longer and require much more work and money than to have done it right the first time.
I was looking at our word for today and noticed something…thoroughness. When we don’t complete tasks with thoroughness, life becomes rough for ourselves or for someone else somewhere down the line. We’re left without having the satisfaction of a job well done. Would we want God to treat His tasks the way we do ours? What would it mean if God washed away only part of our sin? That’s too scary to contemplate, so we definitely want Him to do a thorough job and wash away ALL our sin!
I challenge you to slow down and focus on your tasks today. Be thorough so you don’t deal with the roughness ahead!
