Hiding under glass

Aaron Burden

We are cleaning up for guests, and I tell my daughter she needs to clear off her desk.

Her "desk" is a small nesting table in a corner of the room. She is, after all, only three and a half.

Five minutes later she yells triumphantly, "I cleaned it!" She grabs my hand and leads me back to the room to see.

Her desk is effectively spotless. Completely empty. It had been piled high with puzzle pieces, books, strings, dolls, crayons, purses. All gone.

But still, I can't help laughing.

All of these same possessions are now dumped under the table, to such an extent that there is no way anyone could fit even as much as a toe under this makeshift desk.

To make the situation even more hilarious, the table has a glass top, and I am looking directly at all the junk crammed underneath. But my daughter is looking at me earnestly because she has truly cleaned the top of her desk.

Isn't that how we often try to be good? Sweep up the surface. Quickly hide the ugly. Underneath. Out of the way. Don't let anything show. Or so we think. But like the desk, we're made of glass too. It is all still there — for God to see, and often for others to see as well, for "A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart" (Luke 6:45).

Yes, we need Good Friday because to be truly clean, we need someone to be good for us from the inside out, to substitute ours with a perfect life. I need the one who was perfectly transparent — with everything shining both above and below. No more hiding because Jesus meets the standard for me.

(Five-minute Friday: Today's prompt was "good.")