"SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN DENMARK"

You know the old saying "Confession is good for the soul?"  Well, I was prompted to share a not too pleasant experience I had last week.  I was beginning to notice a smell permeating from the refrigerator.  At first I told myself,  "It is your imagination!"  Funny how I love to do that!  I think that perhaps if I ignore it, it will simply go away. Then it became ever stronger the next day and the next, until my husband finally said, "I think something smells in this refrigerator!"

I knew it was time to put off the inevitable and clean the beast out.  I dumped all the out-of-date milk, leftovers, wiped the shelves, and did a surface clean and thought I had taken care of the problem...WRONG!    The night our small group was coming over, I still knew I had not discovered the culprit.  I did not want our company to think we had a dead animal decomposing somewhere in our home, so once again "I went in".   There behind one of the pickle jars was some broccoli leftovers.  Now, if you have never smelled bad broccoli, it has a pungent smell of its own.  I handed the offensive container to my husband to take out to the trash with the instructions that unless he had a gas mask handy, he should not remove the lid!  It wasn't two minutes after it was removed from the the house that the smell was gone.

Now begins my analogy.  Sin is like that in our lives isn't it?  We know that something is just not right but we choose to ignore it thinking perhaps it will go away, until one day there it is, a smelly stinky mess!  In the Psalms, David had some of the same issues.  Listen to what he says:

    "Blessed is he whose transgression are forgiven whose sins are covered.  Blessed is the man (or
    woman) whose sin the Lord does not count against him in whose spirit is no deceit.  When I kept
    silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night your hand was
    heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.  Then I acknowledged my sin
    to you and did not cover up my iniquity.  I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and
    you forgave the guilt of my sin."  Psalms 32:1-5 (NIV)

Isn't that a beautiful picture of God's forgiveness and grace?  I'm not sure why God put this on my heart this week, but if you find yourself suffering from bad choices and there are leftovers that you need to be rid of, God is willing to clean the mess up and let you begin again,  All you have to do is ask Him!

Here is a poem I wrote last year about this whole refrigerator experience: