CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS

But not in the way you think. I think I get what they mean now.

Listening to Emeka Madubata’s River

No, you’re not reading wrong. No, your eyes are not deceiving you. Yes, it’s Kerusso. I don’t know if we’re back back. I had a leading, I got to writing and here we are. On Friday, I got drenched in the rain while walking home on the streets of Lagos, and mid-shivers, God put this in my heart. It blessed me and I think it’ll bless you too.

I think the practice of holiness is very similar to the practice of hygiene. In a typical African family, there’s a sense of preciseness in keeping things around the house. Everything has its place and it is in fact a taboo when things are found out of place. I can almost hear my dad ask, “What is this cup doing here?”. I imagine even now as an adult, that you have your own rules in place, or what I’d call “we don’ts” for the sake of this letter. I’m smiling as I write this, because my good friend, Wunmi, personifies this. Now, I’m laughing. Why’s this girl living rent free in my head?

Back to what we were saying, your “we don’ts” are basically rules that help you maintain cleanliness and hygiene. “We don’t put clothes on the chair”, “we don’t leave water bottles on the kitchen counter”, “we don’t leave shoes on the floor”, “we don’t pile up dirty clothes”, “we don’t sleep at night without brushing and bathing”, and my mum’s favorite, “we don’t leave dirty plates in the sink”. Let’s use this particular one. “We don’t put things on the fridge top”. Yeah, everyone is probably guilty of this. We don’t put anything there, not bottles, medicine, books, nothing! And so, you follow this rule and put nothing on the top of the fridge until one day, someone puts a bottle there. You call attention to it and it’s taken away. Another time, you see syrups and a bottle of water on the sacred fridge top. If someone doesn’t raise the alarm, one day, you’ll come and find all sorts. When you know it has gotten out of hand is when you see someone’s socks or even worse, a rag on the top of the fridge, or when it’s so cluttered, things start to fall off. But it didn’t start then. The problem is, the “we don’t” wasn’t taken seriously enough. It became okay to put things there.

In practicing righteousness, God’s emphasis is worth paying attention to. “Thou shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.” “Thou shall not bear false witness.” We don’t do these things. They’re not allowed. This is not a theological article about Moses’ Law, because God cares about righteousness now as He did in the Old Testament. Even more so now that we have The Holy Spirit to help us (Hebrews 8:8-12). Do you see where this is going? When we don’t take away our clothes from the chair, it communicates that it’s okay to keep putting more clothes till the chair has all the clothes the wardrobe should house. When we permit a lie to fly without addressing it, we communicate to ourselves that it’s okay to lie and we simply get better at it. When we hold back money that God says to give, we reinforce that disobedience and maybe greed can be tolerated. When we ignore a call to prayer, omo. We’re saying prayerlessness might not be that deep. When we hold back on an apology, we’re saying pride is not that bad. As I’m writing this, I feel a conviction in my heart. Omo, this letter is for me too. When we don’t address our concerns, we’re feeding anxiety, directly opposing Philippians 4:6 and Matthew 6:25-34. I find that this is what James was saying in James 1:14-15. If we don’t take our “we don’ts” seriously, we’re going to one day find things in a mess.

So, maybe we need to become more old-fashioned and enforce the strict rules. Maybe we need to enforce rules like our parents. Because to our mums, they’re not just dirty plates. They’re an approval for potential maggots and fungi to grow. To our dads, it’s not just a cup in the sitting room, it’s a breach of normalcy in the house. I think God views things like that too. It’s not just a withheld apology, it’s an invitation for pride to rule. It’s not just a movie, it’s an approval of lust. Maybe our parents know something we don’t. The fact that it’s that deep.

I have two requests. If this blessed you, please share. Please. Share the link. Share screenshots of the parts that blessed you. Second, please leave a comment. What are some of your hygiene “we don’ts”? I really want to read them. Like, really really. Please tell meeee😂