I am not going to credit the car wash for cleaning my car

I refuse to credit the car wash for cleaning my car. My car was very dirty. Yes it was obvious. Yes if I didn't clean it then the salt would make it rust. Yes my car passed through the long tunnel that is a car wash. Yes when the car came out it was cleaner than when it went in. The car is obviously cleaner than when it went in . I insist though that I cleaned it. I now condemn the car wash. Car wash I don't believe in you! I believe I did this myself! I believe the car would be cleaned whether it went through the car wash or not!.

Why would I say this? It makes no sense. Do I sound a little insane?

I recently was looking back on my last 10 years. In 1997 my wife and I began going back to church and we quickly found a wonderful church family and home. Back in 1997 there were many demons in my life. Too many to list. There were demons in our marriage as well as demons in how I lived in the world ethically. I am not professing that when I started going to church that all the demons were gone. I am not saying that I became born again and my world changed overnight. That did not happen to me.

What I am saying is that in the last 10 years there has been a gradual change in me. One that has been dictated by God's preeminent wisdom and sometimes not seen by my own eyes unless I go way back and see who I was many years ago. I don't think the way I did 10 years ago. I don't desire the things that I did 10 years ago. When I fall, I don't feel the same way I did 10 years ago. Despite the glaringly obvious 10 year "cleaning" I have undergone why would I for a moment entertain the idea that I would still be who I am today even if I didn't ask Jesus Christ into my life? But for a moment I did. It was my old self creeping in.

Then I thought to myself, that would be like denying that the car wash cleaned my car after it exited the wash. I was obviously unclean in how I thought. God cleaned my heart - with many setbacks and struggles - and I am a different person today whether I fully see it or not. We must always fight the tendency to take more credit than we deserve. God has a plan for your life and mine. The real test comes in accepting it.