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Fish Crackers And Dirty Dishes: What Matters Most

Tonight, my friend and her kiddos came over. My house was a wreck, there were fish crackers on the floor and my dishes weren’t done.

But, yet we still managed to have a meal and catch up on what’s been going on. It wasn’t fancy, and Good Housekeeping magazine wouldn’t want a picture of it on its cover — but it was just fine for me. And, as it turns out, for them, too.

My friend showed me grace when my house wasn’t perfect. When some of the spaghetti didn’t cook all the way. When my toddler stole toys from her kid that made her kid cry. When I was exasperated by it all.

So many times, the wall of perfection keeps us from doing life with others. If we have to maintain an image, we can’t have real relationships. No one and nothing but Jesus is perfect — so why do we have to pretend to be?

Jesus didn’t call us to Love our neighbors as ourselves only when we are perfect.

He didn’t say we should wait until we have a picture perfect life before we love other people. He told us to love our neighbors as our selves — which means in the midst of our mess and all that goes with it.

In fact, he warns against keeping up a front. In a matter of fact way, the Lord calls out the scribes and Pharisees on their false images with the symbolism of a cup and plate.

” For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean,” he said in Matthew 23:25-26.

Making sure we look good isn’t the most important thing. It is what is in your heart and the love we share with others. We many not look glamorous and people on the outside looking in may not love what they see – but our Heavenly Father knows our hearts. That’s what counts most.

Not the fish crackers and dirty dishes. They’ll be there tomorrow, anyway.

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