Clean Fill Wanted

Luke 5:12b-if you are willing, You can make me clean (NASB).

The hand-painted sign leaned against the tree for months. CLEAN FILL WANTED! Today, in the tree above it, children lined the branches, several to a limb. They looked like so many giant-sized birds, flocking for the journey to a warmer climate. As I looked at the sign below them, I couldn’t help wondering about the ‘clean fill’those children needed, past, present and future. Did they know God? Were parents so busy providing physical necessities that they forgot to worry about the spiritual? Had someone missed the opportunity to tell a parent about Jesus years ago and now another child would not know?

I thought about those who had helped ‘clean-fill’me. My scrupulously honest mother, longsuffering Sunday school teachers, moral friends and family, the obedient person who first told me about Jesus Christ who died for my sin. Some of my fill was not so clean. Thankfully, God, through the gift of his Son, Jesus, emptied those not-so-clean places and filled me with the fresh newness of His Holy Spirit. He waits only for our openness. He wants to pour through our lives and clean fill us with Himself. Are we willing?

Prayer: Lord, cleanse us. Fill us up with joy, peace, and the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit so that we brim over with hope (Romans 15:13 MSG).  Give us opportunity to ‘clean fill’the folks with whom we have contact. In Jesus’ name. Amen.