car wash

I woke up early this morning with a list of things to do today. Most notably washing my mom's car. I wanted to wash Ben weeks ago, but due to his sickness, I can't.
Washing cars is probably my favorite "chore" of all time. It's relaxing somehow and fun to focus on the details of something besides my room, which is a mess, and my life, which is also a mess.
I was thinking just now about how we do anything to avoid fixing the messes in our lives. Sure, we don't have the ability to "fix." That's very much God's doing...but we choose to throw our mess in a box marked "Not for God" and tape it up with that extra clingy duct tape. Then we walk away...and clean something else - whether it be someone else's life or some other area of our own, like the car. We choose to focus on our routines and not on what's truly the issue. Then we wonder why things aren't ever how they should be and there's always that little bit of chaos in our lives that is avoidable. What we've done is told God that we don't want Him to fix that part of us...and God's not going to push the envelope, or box in this case. Satan, however, will find it and wiggle his way in - it's his playground - and we let him.
I know I've got a few boxes..some that are new, some that are covered in dust from years of sitting, and it's about time to take that duct tape off and let God rule there too.