WHAT’S THE TOP OF YOUR REFRIGERATOR LOOK LIKE?

Though just on the lower end of tall, 6’2”, I am still utilized in stores, like Kroger’s: “Sir, excuse me; excuse me, sir”; it took me a moment to realize that the woman I was barreling past with my cart was speaking to me. I threw on the brakes, stopped, and turned to her. “Could you reach that bread on the back of the top shelf?” I could easily see it and reach it. I pulled it off the shelf and handed it to her. She smiled and thanked me, and I went on with my amateur shopping. Thinking of refrigerators. Being tall, I can not only reach bread on the top shelf at the grocery store but also see the tops of refrigerators. Ours. Yours. Any house I visit. I don’t try to. I don’t take advantage of the hospitality of homes to which I’ve been invited to do a white-gloved inspection. It’s involuntary. I’m taller than most refrigerators. My eye level is above fridges’ top edge. I look down on them. Literally, not disparagingly. I can’t keep from noticing. It’s just my view vantage. And, here, I’m afraid I might offend some folks. I don’t mean to. But, the tops of most refrigerators are rather dusty. Many, name-writing-with-a finger-in-the-dust dusty. Once, I was just trying to be helpful—like helping the lady at the story reach her bread—and made the mistake of mentioning to my wife that the top of ours was a bit dusty. She responded with, “I can’t see up there. I can’t reach up there.” My wife is a professional house cleaner by vocation. She does an impeccable job. She also is barely north of 5’ 1”. She’s right. She can’t see up there. But, from my height, I can. If you are a parishioner, friend, or family member who has, but will now never again, invite me to your home, I must protest this is only a blog about a spiritual truth—not house cleaning. I’m not writing so you will wonder if Pastor Hurst, Dad, Cliff, or whatever you know me by, has seen the top of my refrigerator and found it covered with dust moon-dust deep. No, I’m writing to contemplate that God is taller than 6’2”. From His vantage point, He can see more than the top of my refrigerator. He can see my heart. All of it. And it’s not dust I’m worried about His seeing. Many find it an inconvenient truth, but, as the writer of Hebrews puts it, “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” (Heb 4:13). God sees the top the refrigerator in your heart too. Once in my devotions I was reading and musing on Psalm 139, yet again. Towards the end, I came to the psalmist’s plea, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:” (Psa 139:23). I was wondering, “Why would the psalmist be asking God to search him to discover “any wicked way in me.” He has to know God doesn’t have to search to know. He has to know the omniscient God already knows. In fact, the Psalmist at the beginning of this outpouring has already declared that God has searched Him and known him. (139:1). It’s already been done. And then it hit me why. In a crude analogy, I answered myself, “Of course, the psalmist knew that God already knew what was in him. What he was saying was, ‘God, I know you have searched me and known me, but, God, take another tour of my heart. And this time, take me with you and point out to me and show me what You saw when You made Your search.’” Please, I am not suggesting that you invite me to do a tour of your house for me to inspect your refrigerator and tell you what I see. But, since God already has seen the top of your heart’s “refrigerator,” perhaps, it would be a good thing to, like the psalmist, invite the Lord in to do an inspection and to have Him tell you what He sees. Make no mistake. There’s comfort as well in this knowledge that God has seen the top of your refrigerator. It's not just the dust God sees. I know I don’t just see dust on refrigerators. I also see special keys. Needed medications. Breakable items. Important papers. No, God doesn’t just see the sin, the errant thoughts, the selfish motives and intents, the rebellion and disobedience. He also sees the wounds. The hurt. The pain. The struggles. The battles. Earlier, justifying my wife for our refrigerator being dusty (rarely so), I wrote: “She responded with, ‘I can’t see up there. I can’t reach up there.’” Once or twice (I’m a slow learner), she followed her response by throwing me the dust rag and saying, “If you see it’s dusty, dust it yourself.” She might have been a bit miffed at me. But her response is analogously wise. We should not only ask God how the top of our refrigerator looks from “up there,” but, when He says it is dusty, we should hand him the dust rag of repentance and contrition and, say, “God, if it is dusty, please, dust it.” As my wife also has said, “If you can see it’s dusty, you can also dust it.” What consolation. If God can see it—and He can, He can also dust it—and He will. Just ask Him. What’s the top of your refrigerator look like? None of my business, I’m sure. But have you asked God? ---Pastor Clifford Hurst