Depending on the size of your household and your schedule, laundry might not be an everyday task, but it is definitely a consistent one. But this post isn’t about the broader task of laundry but a specific part of it: folding the clothes.
It’s the part of the the laundry process I hear people complain about the most. Getting the clothes clean doesn’t seem to be the issue. Put them in the washing machine and press a couple buttons. Move them to the dryer and press another button. Get them out to make room for the next load, and put them in a pile. They might be in baskets or on the floor or on the table or couch. It’s as if the process gets started out of necessity and pushed through to a certain extent out of necessity, but once they clear the dryer, making room for another load, there’s no pressure for the next step. After all, we can dig through the piles, find an option to suit our needs, and shake out the wrinkles, right?
Yet there are the times we can’t find a piece of clothing or forget something is part of our wardrobe. And while we can manage with an incomplete job, should we? We get by. We find clothes to wear. We manage. It’s good enough.
Just like the other posts in this series, the challenge is intended to be primarily spiritual. When do we leave aspects of our faith journey undone, stacked around us, accessible but definitely messy and inconvenient? Sometimes we push through a process, a discipline. We gets the “must” part done but don’t follow through. We settle for “good enough” instead of sacrificing a bit more time and effort to complete the process. And the entire process is never fully complete, but each cycle can be cut short.
We can get by without the follow through. Our efforts up to the point we pause aren’t wasted. God doesn’t desire our legalism of jumping through hoops of a process. Our discipline isn’t the goal. Discipline is the process, and it’s full of choices. Folding the clothes and putting them away doesn’t make our lives flawless. We still will miss, overlook, or dislike our options. But the discipline of following through gives us a sense of commitment. We replace “good enough” with our best. And when it comes to our relationship with God, since he gives his best, I’m pretty sure giving best can at least be our goal.
Pure Purpose 