There’s no doubt that when children play in the dirt they’ll come out of their experiences with soiled clothes, dirty hands and they may even have some evidence in their faces and hair.  but they also have a sense of pride and accomplishment when they look at the masterpiece they created or think about what the experience was like.

A farmer has to get in the dirt to yield a bounty that fills his family’s stomach.  And, a florist knows how to work the soil that provides us with beautiful flowers.

Life is messy but we spend a lot of time avoiding the mess we should expect and prepare for.  Christ’s essence was displayed in the midst of mess.  He did dirty work.  We learned about Him as he healed, delivered, spoke and loved.

And yes, loving is dirty work.  When we make tough decisions because it’s what we know we need to do, tell the truth even when it hurts, and keep at what we’re doing when we’d rather give up, we display the kind of love (and grit) that’s uncommon and unpopular.

We have to learn to play in the dirt, be vulnerable, and take stock.  We need to work on ourselves and go through the grimy, miserable, and truly uncomfortable experiences in life to truly know who we are and to align ourselves more purely with Christ.  Our awakenings occur when we face our mess head on.

This is not about adopting a ‘holier than thou’ mentality.  This is about actively demonstrating a willingness to go through whatever it is we’ve worked to avoid for a very long time.  Going through- getting dirty- is the only way to grow, move forward and change.  To allow ourselves to grieve deeply, care with abandon, give with no need to get, pray when we’d rather not, figure out our values and actually live them out (!), face the issues around unforgiveness, call ‘a thing a thing’ and be honest about where we are in our thoughts and feelings, and reconsider the way we do what we do.

It may not feel like it right now, but beautiful things come from the dirt in our lives.  In fact, since He created us from the dirt, we do ourselves a great favor by getting to know what we’re really made of.

So, let’s live and play in the dirt and see what happens…