A Clean Slate
“Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
One of my favorite chores during my elementary school years was staying after school to clean the blackboards. There was a peculiar pleasure in erasing the day's writing and washing the boards clean. But they didn't stay that way. The next day we and our teacher would fill the slates with problems to be solved, writing lessons to be copied, or diagrammed sentences.
This parable of Jesus teaches us that we cannot stop with removing the mistakes of the past. We have to put something on the board. It will be filled in one way or another. It is our responsibility to see that the writing is worthwhile. Otherwise, the slate will be dirtier than it was before it was cleaned.
Jesus Christ wants to fill the empty spaces of our hearts and lives. We must keep in touch with Him in this new year. When a house is empty or a slate is blank, something will fill it. We have the choice of what or whom that will be.
For Reflection: I've got a clean slate, a new year. What will I write on it?
A Prayer Seed:
With grateful hearts the past we own, the future all to us unknown.
We to Your guardian care commit, and peaceful leave before Your feet.
Philip Doddridge, 1702-1751
