Spit and Polish Veneer

I once had a piano student write her name in the dust on my piano.  That proves how much I hate to dust.  I nearly grumble at sunny days when the light presumes to cast it's filmy glow on my furniture.  My neighbor girl said our house smells like dusty perfume.  I told her, "I'm not sure about the perfume part." 

Really, dusting is so low on my priority list that it has to jump up and down and wave wildly to get done.  Or my mother-in-law has to visit.  Or I have to host a party of not-that-close friends.   

Do not blame my mother for this.  She keeps a very tidy home and did her best to teach me how to use a dust cloth.  Blame the 1000 other things I'd rather be doing.  Like blogging...or staring out the window.

Christ said of the Pharisees in Matthew 23,

They talk a good line, but they don't live it. They don't take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It's all spit-and-polish veneer. 

For some reason, reading this makes me think of dust.  More accurately, how my dusty house reperesents a change in me. 

I spent the first part of my life with a spit and polish veneer.  If I got straight As, if people could see how talented I was,  if I could get everything just right, I would feel worthy.  I was loud about my victories and quiet about my vices.  Actually, I tried to pretend my vices weren't there, or didn't matter.  "Sin" was an antiquated, religious word that just ladened people with unneccessary baggage.


When I accepted the truth of Christ in college, it wasn't because I suddenly became aware of my sin.  For me, believing in God answered deep-seated questions. I understood on a theoretical level that the gap between God and me existed because of sin, and that Christ bridged the gap, but I had not truly embraced my own contribution to that gap.


Scour the insides, and the gleaming surface will mean something. -Jesus' plea to the Pharisees, Matthew 23 


Years of God's grip on my heart has squeezed out the truth.  I am dust.  I am the "chief of sinners."  Well, Paul called himself that, and so did John Bunyan, but I beg to differ.  It is I. 


God has a beautiful, compelling standard for pure loving and righteous living, and I fall woefully short. 

Example 1:  Yesterday, one of my piano students was accompanied by her grandma, who had never been to my home, and all I could think was, "Oh no, my house is a mess.  What will she think?"  I was relieved when she didn't come inside.   


Examples 2-4:  I say nice things to people even while my mind is judging them.  Christ called those kind of words a "clashing cymbal." 


I pray that God uses me as an instrument of His love and then fret over some note I played wrong on the piano at a concert. 


I ask God for wisdom in parenting and then let the kids watch 3 hours of T.V. 

Examples 5-a million:  meet me for coffee and we'll talk.


The funny thing is...and this faith is full of strange twists...that the more I face and confess, rather than preen and polish, the more usable I am in God's kingdom; the more His power can scour. 

Thankfully, grace, that thing we call amazing, is a transparent covering over all our foibles and faults... not unlike a layer of dust.