Wash Me Clean Every Day
by Nancy Aguilar
Bats! Rainforests! Mud! Parrots! These were just a few memories from Nicaragua that we shared during Calvary Fellowship’s recent vacation Bible school. In our class, we made beaded pins with the children, and each bead color represented part of the gospel. As we explained the colors of the beads, we related the colors to our experiences in Nicaragua. Here’s what the beads mean:
The gold bead represents God, our Creator
The black bead represents sin and being separated from God
The red bead represents Jesus and His death on the cross
The white bead represents God’s forgiveness of our sins
The green bead represents growing in our life with Jesus
To illustrate the white bead, we held up a pair of mud-covered sneakers. Cathy Taylor described how it rained hard every day in Nicaragua and how our shoes were soaked in mud, inside and out. “At the end of the day,” she said, “we’d come back to the hotel and scrub our shoes in a special sink, using a bar of soap and a brush, until they were clean.” Cathy then set down the muddy shoes and held up a clean, white pair. “This is how our shoes looked after we washed them!” she said. “It felt so good to put on clean shoes and socks at the end of the day.”
“But do you know what’s worse than having dirty, muddy shoes?” Cathy continued. “It’s having a heart that’s dirty from sin.” She went on to explain that because Jesus died on the cross and shed His blood, we can ask Him to forgive us and wash our hearts clean.
At this point in the teaching, we noticed one particular child in the class whose bright, cheerful countenance had suddenly fallen dramatically. This little girl looked troubled, and she raised her hand to speak. “I’ll have to ask Jesus to wash me clean every day because my heart gets so dirty every day!” she said.
The room was quiet. Cathy broke the silence. “Me, too,” Cathy said. “I sin every day, and I have to ask Jesus to wash me clean every day.”
How humbling it was to hear this little girl’s heartfelt desire for forgiveness. Concerning spiritual things, children are so often our best teachers.
Lord, help me see my own great need for Your cleansing and forgiveness. And Lord, wash me clean every day!
