Flossing and Jesus

Sometime this year, I fell out of the habit of flossing.  I'm not sure when it happened.  Maybe it was when I ran out and forgot to put it on the grocery shopping list.   Maybe it was when I decided I was too tired one night and just chose not to floss.  It was easier to "forget" the next night and the next. 

This morning, I realize I really need to floss.  I find the floss, saw it down between my teeth, and feel surprisingly good about this activity. 

It feels like I'm living with flair when I floss. 

I learn that bacteria in the mouth starts to harden into plaque within only 48 hours.  In just 10 days the plaque becomes tartar--rock hard and incredibly difficult to remove.  Tartar leads to gingivitis which leads to periodontal disease (not fun). 

I think about my week and how hardened my heart often feels.  I wake up some days and feel the weight of my own selfishness.  In just 48 hours (or less), I can turn from a spirit-controlled, loving wife and mother into a narcissistic she-devil demanding her own way.  Left unchecked, in less than 10 days, I'm off in the pursuit of false dreams and false gods.  I'm in a rage: complaining, entitled, tearing apart my family.  Who is this woman?

How do these attitudes and behaviors lodge and harden?  What could I have done to break up that bacteria and stay fresh and clean before God? I remember the Psalmist who wrote,

"Search me, God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my anxious thoughts.
 See if there is any offensive way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting."

Living with flair means I floss.   I apply, on a daily basis, the truth of God's word against every surface and root out even tiny--seemingly harmless--bacteria that overtakes and hardens in just hours.  

I ask God to reveal "any offensive way in me."  And when he does, I confess and know that, as 1 John 1:9 claims, "God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

I can't forget this habit, this flossing.  
  




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Journal:  How can I build in the practice of confession on a daily basis?