Cleaning up others mess - Devotion for 10/30/08

Cleaning up others mess – Devotion for 10/30/08

Last night we had a fall festival and “Trunk-or-treat” at the church, and it was crazy! There were people everywhere, and believe it or not, all the kids actually made a lot of noise (I know, shocking, right?). In the chaos of getting set up for everything I had a guy randomly show up who needed some assistance so off I went to try to help him. As soon as I finished with the dude, I found out it was time for the “trunk-or-treat” to begin, and I had missed supper (or dinner if you prefer). I thought maybe I was going to get to eat after the outside festivities, however then we all went in for the costume contests (I won – I was “Batman” – I simply stood holding a baseball bat – nice, right?). At the end of the evening, all the food had been eaten and put away, and I never got a bite to eat – other than 1 or 20 packs of SweeTarts. As the fellowship hall was a complete mess, I felt the need to help the youth clean up, so we proceeded to clean off all of the tables and pick up the trash. As hungry as I was, I have to admit my thorough disgust at the mess that everyone else had left. Half-eaten hot dogs, chewed on cookies, and spilled drinks – it was really quite gross. All I kept thinking as I was picking up the mess with everyone else was, “I didn’t even get to eat, and here I am cleaning up other people’s mess.”

With that in mind, this morning I came in for my devotion time, and the passage I was supposed to read for today was 1 Peter 2:21-25. Verse 24 in particular stood out for me: “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” Sometimes I think I forget how much of my mess Christ had to clean up for me. As I felt disgust at having to clean up other people’s mess when I didn’t even get to eat, I can only imagine what it was like to suffer for something I didn’t even do. Today I want to try to set out with a purpose of living in that way – will to take on other people’s mess so that they may be free.