A Beautiful Brown Bottle
I came home a few weeks ago to find a dirty, old brown bottle sitting on the catch-all shelf by the back door. I wasn't sure who put it there, but I suspected my husband had unearthed it while plowing in one of his fields. It was a squat bottle coated in dried mud inside and out. At first glance it was hard to see anything of beauty in it, but I grabbed the dirty thing as I walked through the door thinking to save it from shattering on my back porch. After setting it on the cluttered bar, I changed clothes and set to cooking supper--a rare occasion lately. The bottle sat there until I could no longer ignore it. The dirt bothered me, and I couldn't resist getting a peek at what lay underneath. As I scrubbed and rubbed at the dirt, I wondered what kind of bottle it could be--anything from DDT to an old brew could have been held in the circa 1974 bottle, but I could see it holding flowers....
After about five minutes of scrubbing using soap and hot water, the outside was clean, but the inside was caked with an insidious black mud that seemed more like cement. I found myself revisiting my efforts to clean up the bottle each night that I found myself in the kitchen with a few minutes to spare. Each night, I refilled the bottle with warm soapy water and left it soaking. Finally, determined to get the mud out, I pulled out the rice and used it to work out the gunk --alternating soapy hot water with crisp new grains of rice until the last defiant speck let go. I found it much harder to get the inside clean than the outside. It took effort and painstaking care.
Call me crazy, but all I could see was myself when I looked at that dirty brown bottle. It collected years and years of dirt and filth, baked in by the heat and elements. It was either abandoned or lost, but then it was found and lovingly tended and scrubbed clean and set in a place of honor. All that for one unassuming little brown bottle. I didn't deserve to be found and rescued from my filth and be given a place of honor, but God has done that for me through Jesus Christ. He has lovingly cleaned me up even when I walked back to the filth he had just washed from me. He has tended my scrapes, bruises, and falls--even when I've thought I couldn't get back up or keep going. He has blessed me and given me a home when I had none. He has patiently waited and guided and loved me when I wasn't very pretty or deserving of his love. I hope that I can remember that sometimes a dose of hot water and soap and scrubbing are the remedies for what gets me dirty because when I wallow in my sin, sometimes God's scrubbing can seem abrasive even though it is quite necessary. He loves me, so he disciplines me and cleans me up...he never leaves me in the sorry condition he finds me in. I want to be a beautiful brown bottle--an earthen vessel containing spiritual beauty, the truth of Jesus Christ: "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us" (II Cor. 4:7, NIV).
After about five minutes of scrubbing using soap and hot water, the outside was clean, but the inside was caked with an insidious black mud that seemed more like cement. I found myself revisiting my efforts to clean up the bottle each night that I found myself in the kitchen with a few minutes to spare. Each night, I refilled the bottle with warm soapy water and left it soaking. Finally, determined to get the mud out, I pulled out the rice and used it to work out the gunk --alternating soapy hot water with crisp new grains of rice until the last defiant speck let go. I found it much harder to get the inside clean than the outside. It took effort and painstaking care.
Call me crazy, but all I could see was myself when I looked at that dirty brown bottle. It collected years and years of dirt and filth, baked in by the heat and elements. It was either abandoned or lost, but then it was found and lovingly tended and scrubbed clean and set in a place of honor. All that for one unassuming little brown bottle. I didn't deserve to be found and rescued from my filth and be given a place of honor, but God has done that for me through Jesus Christ. He has lovingly cleaned me up even when I walked back to the filth he had just washed from me. He has tended my scrapes, bruises, and falls--even when I've thought I couldn't get back up or keep going. He has blessed me and given me a home when I had none. He has patiently waited and guided and loved me when I wasn't very pretty or deserving of his love. I hope that I can remember that sometimes a dose of hot water and soap and scrubbing are the remedies for what gets me dirty because when I wallow in my sin, sometimes God's scrubbing can seem abrasive even though it is quite necessary. He loves me, so he disciplines me and cleans me up...he never leaves me in the sorry condition he finds me in. I want to be a beautiful brown bottle--an earthen vessel containing spiritual beauty, the truth of Jesus Christ: "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us" (II Cor. 4:7, NIV).
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