Cleaning Shadows

I've been an IICRC certified carpet cleaning technician for seven years. I make my living by looking at rugs and carpets from houses and businesses and doing my best to present them as new and as fresh as possible.

This process of cleansing may seem straight forward: 1) Inspect affected area, 2) Pre-treat affected area, 3) Steam-rinse affected area, and 4) Leave affected area as dry as possible. However, there are a few complications that may hinder the smoothness and efficiency of this process. Of the most aggravating, the issue of shadows leads to some of the most frustration for any carpet cleaning professional on the job.

I was recently cleaning a showroom for bathroom and kitchen sets with my brother by the light of a select few lamps and recessed lights. Because of the set up, displays were artistically situated all over this floorspace; it was my responsibility to weave in, through, and around said displays and clean the carpet on which they all stood.

This job took far longer than I thought it should. Why? Because the presence of so many chairs, counters, and cabinets provided a plethora of obstacles in the path of my limited light sources. As I did my best to move uniformly over the carpet, I found myself spending inordinate amounts of time on obscure parts that don't get that much traffic wear at all. I even re-pretreated a few of those spots in an attempt to extricate that obstinate dirt from the carpet to which it so tightly held. But alas, it was an effort of no avail.

So here, Matt Chandler's yapping away at me through my iPod and my self-confidence in my skill as a carpet cleaning professional are dwindling away to oblivion. I really was having a hard time with how my attempts ended so horribly and utterly unsuccessful.

Then it hit me. This wasn't dirt I was trying to clean.

The spots I was so desperately trying to clean were mere shadows.

It all made so much sense.

When I finally realized how much time I had wasted, God flipped a switch in my mind to a transcending spiritual reality of which my situation so clearly pictured: when we try to clean up our lives or other people's lives by addressing a lack of some arbitrary spiritual fruit, all we are doing is wasting time cleaning shadows.

Take for example teenager "x"; in this case, we'll call teenager "x" "Pat". Pat exhibits patterns of disrespect, irritability, and unhealthy self-consciousness. Pat may feel the need to gain approval from other guys or girls to affirm in Pat's mind that Pat is valuable. One could observe Pat's life and say something similar to this, "We must diagnose Pat's problems. Pat listens to ungodly secular music, so we must remove that influence from Pat's life. Pat watches ungodly secular movies and TV shows, so we must remove those influences from Pat's life. Pat wears clothes that are immodest and spends time with ungodly friends, so we must replace Pat's clothes with more Christian ones and expose Pat to good Christian friends. Once we have accomplished those things, Pat's life problems will inevitably change, and we will have served Pat by allowing Pat to move on with Pat's life."

I have heard many of these same things from the mouths of "strong Christians" that supposedly understand the Gospel and the things with which God is most concerned.

What is so funny to me is that the solution above that I have laid out seems to be doing exactly what I was doing in the showroom- it is an approach that merely cleans the shadows. In this and every situation in which sin is present (always, maybe?), the question must be asked, "Why is it that Pat wants to do all these sinful things?" EVERY SINGLE TIME the answer will be some variation of a misunderstanding or disbelief in who God is, how He works, or the implications of what He did on the cross.

A heart that is disrespectful or easily angered or insecure is a heart that does not love and treasure Jesus above all things (belief in the Gospel). Will removing some sort of external trapping to which a sinful heart is inclined make any difference in addressing the problem of a lack of total love for Jesus? ABSOLUTELY NOT!! All this kind of whack-a-mole approach does is attempt to clean shadows when the real issue is that there are tables, chairs, and countertops in the way of the light. THOSE are the things that must be moved before any kind of real, lasting progress can be made.

Here's one last story:
One beautiful summer evening at an ice cream stand with some friends, one particular individual was brought up in conversation as this individual was a mutual acquaintance of me and someone also at the ice cream stand. The conversation didn't last long, but I vividly remember my conversation-buddy saying the words with a clear tone of disgust, "[Person 'x'] is a bad kid."

I am confident that those five words will never leave my mind; it was the first time that God opened my eyes to make me aware of the false dichotomy between "good kids" and "bad kids." It may seem clear that some kids are just better than others, right?

Jesus seemed to disagree- read the parable of the prodigal son and his legalistic brother... To say that any one person is somehow "better" or "worse" than another is to be operating from the attitude that once we work hard at cleaning the shadows, we will effectively stand more uprightly.

My heart was and is truly saddened to think that my friend believes that external behaviors determine the goodness of a person, when it is the reality of whether or not someone embraces for dear life the cleansing presence of our God that is most important. There is no such thing as a "good kid" or a "bad kid". There are only such things as "bad kids"- the question is whether or not God has placed the righteousness of Jesus on them for all eternity (Romans 5:18-19).

Trying to make someone (or yourself) commit fewer bad things will have the same ultimate effect as me trying to clean shadows in a hole-in-the-wall showroom in some town in New Hampshire. Will it work at all? Nuh-uh. Not one bit.

.DSN.