Vacuums and Repentance

The other week I was helping the vacuum the church building, using what they call "the wart hog." It's an industrial vacuum that has the motor and dust bag on little maneuverable rollers, and then a long 10 ft hose with the suction part at the end (similar to our red friend in the picture, but older, and the dust bag was more like a fabric bagpipes than a plastic bucket.)  As I was cleaning in and out of every pew, I couldn't help but realize that the bag on rollers kept following me around! I couldn't get away from it!

What's more, is that it kept hitting things. One time, it fell over and a nice poofy cloud of dust - the dust and dirt I had already vacuumed up - went fluttering into the clean air. Another time it whipped up quick behind me and bit the back of my leg for a nice scrape. I began to wonder - why in the world, am I carrying all my old dirt and dust around behind me like a ball and chain?  Why can't the dirt just disappear once I take care of it?

I realized this was a lot like sins. So often when we sin, for whatever odd reason, we continue to carry them around behind us like a ball and chain. They weigh us down. We can't get away from them. They continue to cause problems and hurt us over and over again. The Lord doesn't want that! I know that Christ suffered for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane so that once we vacuum them up out of our lives - once we repent by calling on God's name and confessing to Him our wrongdoings and then (most importantly) forsake our sins, we DON'T have to keep carrying them around. The Lord remembers them no more, and neither should we!  Christ's Atonement is that perfect vacuum system that makes the dirt and filth of my past life completely disappear once I properly take care of it! Satan wants nothing more than for us to continue carrying around old baggage. He wants that dust bag to hold us back and weigh us down. But the Lord wants us to be free from our sins - and we can be!

What a blessing it is to know that the Atonement works so much better than even the best industrial vacuum: we don't have to keep toting around our past sins, but can become free, clean, new creatures in Christ!