cleaning out the dog pen

While my friend and neighbor goes to the lake, she asks if I will take care of her dog. Ofcourse I will, you do anything for a friend,right? She has the sweetest little dog named Daisy, although she is not sweeter than my little Daisy! I go over and carefully take care of her. I give her fresh water, fill her food bowl, and yes, clean her pen of all the doo! For me, this is the part that is not so grand. To get the hose and start cleaning, I have learned from my first time not to get too close, and let it spray up on me,ugh. That first time I came home with poo on me, and I smelled like a wet dog. I shot straight for the shower to wash this smell off of me. But as I do this more and more, I learn how to do it correctly, I learn to stay away from the poo, and I still come home and jump in the shower. I wash all the smell off, and the dirt from the pen. Just what if I didn't? What if I decided to go over, clean out the pen, and leave all the dirt and smell on me? Pretty soon, I would get used to it, and I wouldn't smell myself, but others sure would be able to. They would tell by my appearance that I liked dirt, and by my smell they would know I had not showered in awhile. Our lives are like this too with sin. At first we can dabble in it a little, we may not get too much poo on us, atleast not enough for us to notice,but others will. With sin in our hearts, we must head for the shower, and scrub with all our might to get the dirt off, the smell and clean our hearts pure. When just a little poo on you, it smells like the room is full of it, just as with sin, we may think just a little wont hurt,but the smell and stain is there. With sin if we are not in check with our hearts daily, we too can build up dirt, and we can seem like "Pigpen" from Charlie Brown. We have our own little whirlwind of sin around us. Others can sometimes see it before we can, and if we are not careful, we get use to that whirlwind, and as it grows, it becomes harder and harder for us to get out. But all it takes is us looking at our hearts daily, keeping them clean, and asking God to forgive us of our act of sin, and go near it no more. We must pray for strength to stay clean, and not get too close to the poo.The greatest thing is we have a God who understands, He is a God who loves us, and will clean us. He will clean out our pens, He will water us, feed us, and care for us when we are in need. We can be washed clean with just asking forgiveness of our Father. He will clean us up, and He will make our pens shine, no smell, no dirt, only grace....