Sometimes it is hard to understand what sin looks like. Often we look at others and can easily point out what they are struggling with; be it gossip, gluttony, laziness, unfaithfulness, and so on. A few months ago, I had a dream that truly gave me a revelation as to what sin looks like on us and I want to share it with you too!

I was standing at a pure white sink, and even though I saw no dirt on my hands, I was there to wash them. I turned the water on and looked down to put my hands in the water, what I saw frightened me! The water itself was crystal clear but as soon as it touched my hands, the water turned pitch black! Before even putting soap on my hands to wash the dirt away, the water was still grimy black. My hands were still the color of my skin, it was only the water that turned black. I remember looking at them in such confusion as to how it was possible that this much dirt came off of what appeared to be very clean hands. When I woke up, I wrote the dream down and tried to understand its meaning… Here is what I got…

I remembered reading a few times in the Bible about the comparison of Jesus and water (John 4:14) and being cleansed of our sins (1 John 1:9, 1 Cor. 6:11), so I metaphorically equate the crystal clear water as Jesus, the black water after it touched my skin, as sin. Then myself, as myself or any other human – believer or not. Looking at myself, I seemed to be fine, an outward appearance is just that though, God knows our deepest darkest secrets and the things we do that often even we can overlook within ourselves. When I went to get cleaned from the water (Jesus), my sin began running down the drain for me to never see it again (Micah 7:19)! That my friends is exactly what happens when we give our lives to God, a transformation begins in our lives immediately AND for life. That’s why no matter how long I stood there waiting for the black water (sin) to stop, it kept running! Remember my hands appearing clean?? I am afraid this is what happens when we simply check accepting Christ in our lives as a one time deal and go no further with our faith. Or perhaps we regularly attend the church building (hearing God’s word), but we aren’t being doers of the word (James 1:22) by living a life that has been truly transformed.

Every one of our lives is a journey, we aren’t the author nor finisher of our lives and understanding that we can not determine the length should intice us to take every minute we are given as an opportunity to grow! It is my hope that after reading this passage, you are reminded to take your life to Jesus and let him cleanse anything that you have become complacent with in your life. After this dream, I took the opportunity to acess my own life and asked the Holy Spirit to reveal anything I was either holding on to, or blind to. I want to remember to continually grow in my spiritual walk. May we not get stuck in a phase of our journey because of our lack of communication with God.

Prayer: Thank you Jesus for dying on the cross for our sins, thank you for defeating death and ressurecting to life and now sitting as an intercessor for us. Thank you for loving us despite of us! I ask that you will soften our hearts in this moment and reveal areas that you need to cleanse in us, so that we can be the version of us you desire us to be. Please give us opportunities to show others what a life lead by you is, one that glorifies you in everything we do, so that we can be true image bearers for you! In Jesus name, amen.