Don't Read This Post at the Dinner Table

"If you have to go potty,
stop and go right away."
-Daniel Tiger

I have been working on a book. It is about my journey to try to understand how to live as a Christian and an actor at the same time. I haven't been blogging as much, I think because the book has been getting a lot of my writing energy. But it seemed like tonight was the night to write.

Now to this post: I wonder if you hear God speaking to you in the little things of your day like I do? Do you notice him when you are brushing your teeth or when you lock the door behind you and the key gets stuck a little in the lock? Because he is in all of those moments, big and grand and epic in the tiniest temporal thing.

My good friend Leslie recently commented about how I see everything as a metaphor for life. So, true, so true. I just seem to be made that way. I couldn't help but notice, as I've lived along this life, that so many "regular" things are actually symbols for the greater reality behind what we can see. Take the classic example of the butterfly. How many Sunday school teachers have talked about how being saved by Jesus, being brought from death to life, is like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly?

Well, I bet you haven't heard this next analogy.

I can't stop thinking about an everyday occurrence that is also a fantastic metaphor for sin, and that is poop. (Did she just say that?)

Maybe God has been working in my heart, preparing me intentionally for the specific call to write today's blog post by giving me a toddler who has been potty training with #2 for the last nine months. I am kind of over the ick factor by now--one has to be after handling more poop and plunging the toilet more times than she ever dreamed of.

I am primed and ready. I shall now share the pearls of wisdom I have been given. (Wow, nothing I write here does not sound like a 7th-grade poop joke right now. I am regressing as I type.)

Okay, so sin is like poop. For example, did you ever notice how alike the set up of a bathroom stall and a confession booth are? And how the kind of absolute privacy we need for going #2 is the same kind of privacy we seek out for the confession of sins?

And then think about poop: it is repulsive. You only want to get away from it; you only want to get rid of it. It smells like death, with a scream added in and a slap to the face. Ugh, awful. It makes you feel sick, like your stomach is being jiggled around, just to get a whiff of the stuff.

Same with sin. Yucky stuff.

This is, I think, why God is so concerned about purity--in our relationships, in our devotion to our spouses, in our worship of Him. The Holy Spirit, who lives in all Jesus-believers, is described in the Bible as "rivers of living water" (John 7:37-39). Who doesn't want to find some clean flowing water to wash their hands as fast as they can after a toilet run?

I started thinking about the way we humans like to justify our sin: "Oh, a little won't hurt. It will just be kind of fun." Imagine if someone said that same thing while talking about putting feces (ugh! just the word!) in a glass of water you were about to drink.

A little goes a long way, my friends, with poop and with sin.

Or think about a swimming pool, and how there are rules about babies and toddlers wearing swim diapers. If fecal matter is found in a swimming pool, they shut that thing down! Then they shock the pool with chlorine and wait until it is safe for patrons to swim again.

Imagine you get your bathing suit on, grab your towel and sunscreen, and head for the pool? You are sweating from the heat, and can't wait to jump in and bathe yourself in that sparkling water. You jump in and feel the cool rush of refreshment. You hang out for awhile and then go home with that happy-exhausted feeling you get after a good swim.

But the next day you get sick. You call the pool, and the lifeguard on the other end says in his best it's-summer-who-cares voice, "Aww, yeah, man. We found some fecal matter in the pool yesterday morning, but we didn't want to have to shut the thing down and make everyone go home, so we just let everyone swim in the pool anyway."

Gross, right?

I could go on--I think my adolescent self is loving this blog post--but let me wrap up. Poop is like sin. The next time nature calls you, consider this analogy, my friends. And consider that Jesus's death on the cross was like the ultimate plumbing and sewage system, removing our stinky sins from us "as far as the east is from the west" (Psalm 103:12).

So, to my fellow potty-training moms, the next time you are tempted to get impatient and short with your toddler, remember how patient and sweet God is while he helps us in the bathroom of our sinful hearts. And the next time you feel tempted to say something like, "Oh that guy? He's just a plumber," stop yourself. Sanitation workers, too, bear the image of God.

And for ensuring that Jesus will be on your mind, even in the bathroom stall?



You're welcome.