Bright & shiny

Joanna and I spent a long weekend at Lake Hamilton in Arkansas with our friends Brent and Jackie. We split the costs of housing, food and renting a pontoon boat for a day. But at least we don't need to buy a new coffee pot anymore.

Jackie and Brent are remarkable friends who have had a permanent impact on our lives. We all met at Bellevue Baptist Church, a smallish congregation on the western edge of Nashville, Tenn., in 1986. At the time, their girls, Alayna and Andrea, were preschoolers. Our oldest daughter, Lindsay, was, too. And our youngest, Molly, wasn't even born until a few months later.

Halcyon days

Brent calls that Nashville period "our halcyon days," and I agree. Bellevue Baptist had an unusual composition back then—a mess of young families with small children, almost no middle-aged adults, and a large group of seniors. Everybody knew everybody, and church felt like extended family. Our girls played with scads of kids, and numerous surrogate grandparents doted on them. Church was the hub of our lives, and we reveled in it.

Eventually, we took new jobs and moved away. Joanna, Lindsay, Molly and I trekked to Kentucky for a few years and then back down to where Jo and I grew up,  Texas. Brent, Jackie, Alayna and Andrea eventually returned to Brent and Jackie's hometown, Memphis.

Undiluted friendship

By that time, we knew distance wouldn't dilute our friendship. And we strengthened it with numerous shared vacations to the beach. Now, our girls are all grown. Ironically—you'd think this would be easier with four people instead of eight—we can't always finagle a week off at the same time. So, we try to meet for a long weekend somewhere in-between their home and ours.

Mostly, we laugh. And play Hearts, which Brent usually wins. I haven't figured out if he's a better card player or he just cares more about winning. Either way, the results are the same. (Here's my theory about Hearts and just about any other table game: The point is not winning. The point is setting aside time to be together, tell stories, laugh and generally enjoy each other's company. That's the same reason professional baseball has stayed afloat all these years. People like going out to the ballpark to sit and visit.)

Cleanliness is next to You-Know-What

The place where we stayed at the lake had a coffeemaker that keeps  java warm in a stainless steel carafe. Sometime during the weekend, Jo mentioned our coffee maker—which also has a carafe—needed to be replaced. She described the deep, dark coffee gunk that lined the inside, as well as our futile efforts to clean the carafe. The hole in the top is too small for our hands, so we haven't been able to scrub it. And "The Blob" was about to take over the carafe.

Jackie knows I've got this obsessive/compulsive thing about cleanliness. So, she beamed as she told us how to restore our coffee maker:  Drop a tab of automatic-dishwasher soap into the carafe and fill it with hot water. Let it sit for awhile. Rub the insides down with a stiff brush. And—ta-da!—look inside.

I'd be lying if I said I couldn't wait to get home. Hanging out with friends at the lake is waaaay better than heading for home to face down a corrosive carafe. But after we got home and unpacked the car, I couldn't wait to try Jackie's cleaning advice.

When I dumped the dishwasher-soap water out of the carafe, it looked like a sewer exploded. Ebony water and tar-looking chunks of fossilized coffee flowed down the drain. But when I looked inside the carafe, it practically shined like the top of the Chrysler Building. After a second soap-soaking, it looked brand-new.

I was mesmerized. Jo was amazed. We called Jackie to offer our praise and gratitude.

So, what does my coffee carafe have to do with you?

Sometimes, our lives remind me of our old coffee carafe—lined and coated with the detritus of the daily "stuff" of our lives. When we look hard, we're disgusted. We may cover for it by saying, "Well, that's just the way life is." Or we may be so put off, we quit looking, pretending the grimy buildup just doesn't exist.

Of course, it's still there.

If we're not faithful, we lose hope of restoration—of being made clean and new.  And yet Jesus Christ has the power to make us brand new.

For some folks, this never has happened. They're far from God, and the corrosion of life's disappointments and difficulties seems overwhelming. But Jesus has the power to clean our darkest stains and give us new lives. We only have to accept his offer of a new start, and the gunk of our past lives is loosened and washed away.

For others of us, that's already happened. But just as our coffee carafe will need to be cleaned again, our lives get consumed by the muck and mire of living in a real world of distractions and disillusionment. Thank God, Christ cleanses—again.

The key is to allow Christ to infuse our lives. His purity can overpower our impurity. His goodness is stronger than our wickedness. His selfless love transcends our selfishness.

OK, every analogy breaks down. Our coffee carafe didn't have any say-so in getting cleaned up. But, as humans, God gave us control over what happens in our lives. So, to allow Christ to work in us, we must open up. And that makes all the difference.