We’ve had our desktop computer since 2013. It’s been a great tool, but ever so slowly and gradually, it’s been running slower and slower and slower. It was almost imperceptible for a long time, but then one day the slow crawl to do any function on the computer became strikingly apparent.
I tried to ignore it, but it got to the point where it was extremely obnoxious. I realized it was time for me to do a thorough cleaning of the computer by going through tons of files in the downloads folder to determine which ones were necessary to keep, sorting through 35,000+ photos, and other daunting tasks.
It took me months to finish the computer’s housecleaning.
As I painstakingly clicked on each file, I thought how much easier it would have been if I had organized the files as I downloaded them–sorting them into appropriate folders or deleting them as I went. How much easier it would have been to go through my photos every month–or at least once a year instead of waiting until I had thousands dating back from 2006.
And then I wondered how often we treat repentance like the cleaning out of our computers. How much easier would it be to daily repent instead of waiting until so much filth has built up in our lives that we are spiritually slowed to a crawl?
Daily turning…daily repenting…is so small and simple and freeing.
I must have needed this lesson twice to embed it in my memory, because shortly after I embarked on my computer cleaning process, it was our family’s turn to clean our local church building.
It happened to fall on the weekend when I was suffering with shingles and so I opted to stay home. But I asked my husband to bring home the sacrament trays for me to clean. I had noticed the grime they held from years and years of build-up.
It took me nearly 4 hours to clean 10 water trays that day. I took frequent breaks when my nerve pain from the shingles flared. I scrubbed with bleach and a sponge and then used my fingernail to scrape the rest of the mildew from each groove. It was a painstaking process and my body was racked with pain as well.
However, with each tray that gleamed white again, I gained a greater sense of gratitude and utmost reverence for the Savior’s atonement wrought in our behalf. As I stood at my kitchen sink cleaning each tray, I thought of Him and how He suffered for us one by one to make us white and clean again.
How much easier and less painful it is to keep ourselves clean with daily repentance than to wait years and years before letting the cleansing process begin.
“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Isaiah 1:18, KJV
It is up to us to go to our Heavenly Father and sincerely repent each day. As we make this small and simple choice each day, our souls can remain spotless and clean and free.
Repentance is a gift and a way to live our lives to the fullest.
Featured photo by team member Rhonda