Clean Hands

The earth is the Lord's, and all that is in it...Who may stand in the holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. Psalm 24: 1a & 4a

This is a great Psalm...if you have a Bible handy or can go to a Bible site from this blog, read it all. But to keep this on one page, this is where I want to focus.

I am a quilter...I piece more than I actually quilt, but I sit with a quilt on my lap almost every night. There are things I love...and one of them is M&Ms. I put on weight in college eating M&Ms. I put on weight in my older age eating Blue Bunny Chocolate Synphony (yes, I spelled that right) ice cream. I love the Harry and David peppermint bark. I also love Good and Plenty. So what does this have to do with sewing and quilting?

Everything in the earth belongs to God and to properly worship Him we must come with clean hands. It is truly interesting for me to think in terms of what makes my heart impure and my hands dirty. When I sit down to sew or quilt, knit or embroider, I often have to wash my hands first. If they are sweaty, if I have been pulling weeds, if I have used the restroom, if I have just sorted laundry, if I have wiped floors or cooked food, my hands have stuff on them that will not just make cloth dirty, it will ruin it over time. Grease will stain, sweat will show up as a stain later, dirt will change the color and make the fabric lose its beauty, and germs will help spread disease and contaminate things. There are a million reasons we wash our hands, but usually it is to prevent the other things we touch in life from being altered and ruined. Soil is good outside for growing plants, but it will ruin cloth. Sweat is necessary to prevent our bodies from overheating, but it will soil the materials to the point of early decay and color change. God was big on hand washing. The priests had to do it, the sick had to do it. Washing was a big part of the culture. I didn't realize that most third-world countries that do not have a Judeo-Christian base also do not have a culture of washing. So much disease and misery could be prevented with basic washing...and clean water. God knew this, and demanded it for the health and safety of the priests, the people, and as a symbol of purity.

So I wash my hands when I am going to handle fabric. I down M&Ms and Good and Plenty while I sew, but the ice cream and peppermint bark stay in a separate room. I can not keep clean hands eating certain things, but can with the others. I must maintain the clean hands while I work, not just before I start working. I must think before touching things. I must make trips to the sink if there are other things like tissues that must be handled. There will be the natural body oils that cannot be avoided, but no lotion is on my hands during the quilting process...clean means free of any and all things that can soil the things we touch. Even Good and Plentys might have to be avoided if the heat and humidity are too high because the shells might get melty and turn my fingers sticky pink and white.

This is the story of our Christian lives. We are called to wash our hands and purify our hearts and other things in this passage, to live for God. We want to glorify God with the works of our hands and with our hearts, but there is little glory for Him if our works are covered in fingerprints and sticky, dirty, ruinous filth that will be destructive either now or further down the road. I may love the world that God created and rejoice in it, but those things, as sweet and good as they are consumed properly and at the right time, can also destroy the fabric of our lives if they mess with our commitment to God. We are going to the Holy Place to receive a blessing from the Lord. He cannot put his Holy, clean and pure blessing into dirty hands, or hands that are full of the things of this world. We have to leave worldly things behind, wash away the residue, and hold them upward and open for Him to fill them. We seek Him, His face, but the promise is that when we see Him, He will draw near, come in, and fill us. Like any dish, we clean it before we fill it. When it is emptied, we wash it again so it can be filled again. The residue of what was once a blessing, good food, can become a curse...a moldy, germ-infested plate will not nourish, but destroy and sicken. The same with our hands. We use our hands to do the work God has called us to do, but we cannot go on day after day doing it without cleaning them up. The things we touch without washing daily will not be a blessing, but a curse if they are stained, germy, and show evidence of the natural dirtiness of our own selves or the world around us. God has to take away that dirt, clean us, so that we can be willing servants. No one would let someone with dirty, muddy garden hands come into their sewing room and start sorting the fabric, patterns, scissors, etc. The time it would take to undo the damage, the more thorough scrubbing, the need for more soap and detergents, the grease cutters...some things may be able to be scoured back into usefulness, but some might end up trashed because the stains just won't come out, or the treatment might discolor and ruin the gloss of the original fabric. The pages of the books will never be ridded of the vestiges of muddy fingers. No, even those with good intentions must wash their hands to serve us, and we must wash to serve God. How we hate to be told we are dirty. If we look at our own hands, others will not have to point them out to us. We can look and clean them, knowing that they will again get dirty, but God understands that. That is why we get to wash every time we come toward Him. And it's for our good as well as His glory. That is how He is. When we seek to bless Him, He instructs us in ways that help us, too. So break out the soap...