God Can Use Dirty Laundry

My children are learning to do their own laundry. They are twelve and eight. This came about when I saw on several occasions clothes that I had folded and instructed my children to put away returned to the hamper unworn and still folded -- never worn. So, now they wash, dry and fold their own clothes. It's a good skill to know. It is a needed skill to have. I am after all preparing my children for adulthood. I don't want to forever be washing their clothes...especially the boy's after he comes home from a hunting or fishing weekend. That's just gross. And as children do, sometimes they have had to wear dirty laundry because they didn't do their washing when I reminded them. There are times that I obviously do their laundry like when they are in school, but I don't fold or put away. They can do that. And the idea that God was able to use dirty laundry to bring healing to someone makes me wonder just how sick the person had to be!

Cookie cutter. Predictable. In-the-box. Mundane. Routine.


So often we look for God to answer questions and handle our problems the way we think it should be done, and then we get upset and angry with God when he does something differently. I lost my job; God will give me a new one. My home was foreclosed; God will provide another house. My spouse cheated on me; God will fix my spouse. My health is failing; God is going to heal me. My car broke down; God will provide the finances for the repairs. Are any of these bad ideas or thoughts? Absolutely not. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve prayed for God to heal someone or prayed for God to provide a specific thing.

But sometimes I think we lose our WONDER in God because we expect the predictable. We want him to be predictable because there is security in that. We say that God is unchanging. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Consistency doesn’t have to mean repetitive, contained or routine. God’s consistency is that He’s with us no matter what comes our way. God’s consistency means that what he says he’ll do. God’s consistency can be trusted because we know he goes before us and that he holds our tomorrows and prepares us for it.

I expected to get pregnant to have our children, even though God had put it on my heart when I was in high school to adopt. I expected God to heal a childhood friend from cancer this past year, but he chose to cure her permanently and took her home. I expected God to keep my family safe, but my mom was diagnosed with cancer in 2007. Predictability is not the way God operates. God does not have a box within which to operate.

Sometimes we have to get desperate for him. Sometimes we have to hunger and thirst for him so badly that we are willing to operate outside what appears normal. In Acts 4:12-16, people were desperate for healing. They were so desperate that they believed that if Peter’s shadow passed over them they would be healed. GOD USED THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT TO HEAL…They believed this because God was working in Peter’s life. They believed in the God that Peter was praising and worshipping. Acts 19:12, people were healed by touching facecloths and aprons Paul had used. GOD CAN USE DIRTY LAUNDRY!!!! What other uncommon ways did God use in the Bible to minister, to teach, to heal? What about the talking donkey (Numbers 22:29)? Isaiah 55:8 says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways…”

You want something to happen in your life? You want or need something from God? Then don’t expect the expected. Be open. Be observant. Be grateful.