My windshield was pretty dirty yesterday, so I got out the Windex and paper towels and got busy. When I was finished, it looked 100% better. I cleaned the inside and outside and it looked great! I thought I had done a fine job cleaning my windshield.
This morning I took my son to school. The moment we turned at the bottom of the street to face east (directly into the sunlight), the windshield looked like crap. There was a thin complete film of dirt smudge over the entire windshield.
How did this happen? I cleaned it completely the day before? Was this new dirt that somehow magically appeared during the night?
Actually, it was a dirty film that was there all along, I just could not see it when I was cleaning because I did not have the right light on it. When I got the car into the direct sunlight, I could see it all….it was as plain as day and it looked awful. After more inspection, I found that most of the dirty film was INSIDE the car, not on the outside.
This instantly reminded me of how I try and “clean” my mind and heart from time to time. I work really hard to clean the “windshield” of my heart and I sometimes take great pride in how I am doing. Then I turn and face the sunlight (God) and see all kinds of smudges I did not see before.
I know that when I have asked God to “search my heart and show me what is in me that is not pleasing” (a great prayer by the way), I almost always see some smudge that I have overlooked or just could not see otherwise without God’s direct light.
Sometimes, it’s as easy as turing the car (you) toward the sun (God) to get the full exposure and see the reality of our lives. When we do that we see the truth and then we can deal with it.
