I need to dust my bookshelves.

There's a good inch-and-a-half of space between the edge of each shelf and the row of paper vertebrae - an inch and a half that is now gray instead of the original cheap black finish. A quick sweep of my finger begins to restore the former glory; how quickly a few strokes of a damp paper towel would finish the job!

I procrastinate. I have procrastinated for longer than I care to admit. Dusting my shelves is not a big deal, and still I don't. The frivolous arguments abound. The shelves will only get a little dustier with time - it does not matter much - and anyway, if I wait until they are really dusty, then it will feel like I am doing much more by cleaning them... 

Such thinking is humorous when applied to my bookshelves, but looking about me I begin to see where it creeps into the broader scheme of Life - that is, in how I invariably put off the housekeeping of my soul. There will always be dust gathering somewhere. Sin blights up and casts its shadow out from the corners. If I wipe it away, it comes back. If I clean now, I will have to see it dirtied again. So I don't. And as I leave my heart to be cluttered by sin, I believe no truth but a lie, the fear that maybe Jesus won't win. 

Here is housekeeping hallowed as a calling and ministry. My eyes see futility in cleaning things that will only be cluttered again - but perhaps my eyes have grown accustomed to turning things backwards. The topsy-turvy truth in dusting is this: I am not made any more clean by wiping the same sins away again and again, and yet I am called to do so - not as one trying to make redemption effective, but with all the finality of a herald announcing the outcome of a duel ringing into my actions: redemption is certain. 

Dust settles. Dust gathers. And I take my cloth and strike it away and say, nay. Yes, there is dust and filth that has gathered. Dust only happens because something has died. It ought not discourage me, then, that because sin has died there is dust. I will sing of the the triumph of redemption to my heart with the dishrag and the duster.

Of course, it is never a matter of merely having a clean inch-and-a-half. Cleaning the shelf would be sheer futility then; but having cleaned, one looks past the the edge of the shelf. In a way, it is brushed away with the dust, past distraction so one may see the rest of the shelf. There dusty hands may reach deep into tales ablaze with truth and glory and beauty, together woven into the story of a hope that does not disappoint. The books themselves ought never require much dusting.