Fingerprints on the Window

For the month of July we are going to be digging up some old favorite posts from the archives here at Habits or from the personal blogs of our authors. Here is one originally published at Frogs, Snails and Puppy Dog Tales.

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My back door is a single French-style door, with a solid pane of glass that goes nearly to the floor. A few days ago I noticed that it had been a while since I last cleaned it. With 3 young children and a dog, the glass is rarely clean. I wiped away the smudges, fingerprints, and noseprints, and stood back to admire the spotless glass. In no time at all, my littlest one was at the door, pressing his hands, face and tongue on the newly cleaned glass, undoubtedly enjoying the unobscured view. So I moved him away, wiped off the new smudges, and went about my business. Only moments later, the dog was peering out the door, leaving a big, wet noseprint in the middle of the glass. This time I just rolled my eyes and walked away. By the next day, the door was covered with prints again, and it didn’t bother me anymore to see the kids or the dog at the back door. What’s one more smudge on top of a hundred others?

My life is so much the same way. If I just take a quick glance, I don’t really see much sin. Sure, maybe there are some little things here and there, but nothing really for me to worry about. What I’m realizing, though, is that it is hard to recognize all the little sins in a heart that isn’t clean. All those little things build and build, until I don’t notice them anymore. When I take the time to examine my heart, I see that there are far more smudges there than I realized.

Sin is unmistakable in a clean heart – it stands out like a big fingerprint on a sparkling clean window. As long as I deal with sins one by one as they appear, my heart will remain clean. But before long, I tire of the effort. I get careless and let a few sins slip in unnoticed – a movie I shouldn’t see, a word I shouldn’t say, a bit of gossip here and there. They accumulate until I can’t distinguish one from another, and all I see is a smudgy mess. When my heart is in that condition, it becomes easier and easier to let things in that shouldn’t be there.  After all, what is one more sin on top of all the others?

Kendra is a stay-at-home homeschooling mother of four rowdy boys. She’s been married to her high-school sweetheart for twelve years. When she’s not playing teacher, nurse, cook or housekeeper, she loves to read and write.