I Shower With This Too Often

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One of the things that I do that Melissa has to call me out on every now and then is using the same towel for too long.

I don’t know why, but I hate using a fresh towel.
There’s just something odd about it for me.

And so, I use the same one for a few days (weeks) in a row.

Eventually, the towel begins to stink to the point that Melissa is forced to tell me I have to wash it.

I don’t know what it is, but I bet you have a habit kinda like this.
Something that you think, “That’s GROSS!” when you hear that someone else does it, but it doesn’t seem that bad because you’re the one doing it.

That’s kinda the way we think about our sins.

We think….

If I’m doing it, it’s not that bad…

At least I’m not doing ____ like ____.

The problem?

When we compare ourselves with others, we’ll always be able to find someone that seems worse than us.
When we compare ourselves to God, that towel suddently smells worse… His towels are fresh and white.

This is a call for us to all work on ourselves.
If we all do that, we won’t have time to call anyone else out on their dirty towel.


Comments

18 responses to “I Shower With This Too Often”

  1. A dirty towel today, dirty socks tomorrow…it’s always something. We can work on one sinful habit today only to have another one to work on tomorrow. But that’s why it’s a good thing God is merciful, graceful and patient!

    PS – I wash our towels once a week, it saves on laundry! :) My son likes the scratchy hotel towels. Goofy boy.

    1. I can’t do scratchy towels! Have to be soft… And used multiple times. :-)

    2. Today’s “scratchy towel” is tomorrow’s loofah? :D

  2. I do the same thing. Why waste a good towel if you can use it again. I am also like this with Jeans. If I could I would wear them without wash for days.

    No need to go through the trouble of cleaning them!

    1. Agreed on both!

  3. Guilty of the the same towel issue!
    I used to be bad at comparing my own sin to others and judging others in that way. I have come to realize over the past several years that sin is sin and should not be ranked. In God’s eyes we are all sinners needing redemption.

  4. Darrell Childress Avatar
    Darrell Childress

    Sooooo glad to hear that I’m not the only one with the “dirty” little secret of reusing a towel multiple times (and jeans and shirts too!), though 3-4 times is about the most I can go before tossing the towel in the laundry….I always dread doing laundry, what a waste of time. :-)
    I’ve definitely used the comparison of my sins to others to justify that what I was doing isn’t as bad as “their sin”, but the reality is that God doesn’t judge us on a curve…scary to think of my future without His grace.

  5. Man, I can’t do the dirty towel thing, but I’m this way with my jeans and my sheets — neither gets washed as often as they should!

    Regardless, thanks for this post, Jonathan. Love your honesty, and love the truth in this. Great reminder for a new week.

    1. Thanks David. Thanks for the comment!

  6. I’m guilty of not changing my sheets often enough on my bed. I can go months without washing them. Gross, I know.

    I have noticed lately how easy it is to think my sins are “ok” while the sins other people deal with are so much worse, when, really, they are all the same. Sin is sin, whether it’s a “big” sin or “small” sin in our eyes.

    Great post, Jonathan!

  7. True…I am forced to use an old towel because if it were up to me, I would get a new one everytime! haha

  8. Can’t go there! I used to use a fresh towel everytime until I got married. Now I change towels every couple days. But it must be soft! But I’m with David. Jeans and khakis I wear there for a while!

  9. Wow. I’m glad I’m not the “only” one who re-uses towels and jeans!
    But I guess it’s all part of the “control” thing. We want to think our sins are on a “different level” than others; and conversely, we want to think our good deeds are on a pedestal above others. But when it all comes down to it, sin is sin and works are like filthy rags when it comes to God’s grace.

    But thank goodness he loves us and pours His extravagant grace upon us!

  10. You know, every day I live on this planet, something stranger than anything I’ve ever encountered shows up.

    What’s wrong with reusing a towel? You shower to be clean. You wipe the water off with a towel. Shouldn’t it, therefore, be clean?

    OK, I’m kidding about that last bit, but I’ve always thought having to use a new towel every time was silly. It also meant I’d run out of towels long before the wash got done. (Disclaimer: I grew up on a farm with well water & septic tank. Doing the wash frequently enough to have a clean towel every day or every other day — and, yes, I heard that “EWWW!” from the back row! — could mean not having enough water in the tank to drink, or too much in the other tank for … well, you know.)

    Seriously, though, and drawing this back to the “spiritual” topic, towels and sin are different in one significant regard. Many people truly don’t have the ability to have a clean towel every day, even in the US, even outside of the homeless. Many people live in societies where that isn’t a necessity. Sin, on the other hand, is universal. We have it defined in the Bible, but more importantly, we are given the power to overcome it!

    So hang up the hang-ups on “reused towels,” for crying out loud.

  11. Sin is so easy to justify, that’s why it gets easier and easier to keep doing the same sinful thing. Good post!

  12. Dude, seriously I am the same as you with the towel. My wife is always telling me how bad it stinks. I must have an underdeveloped sense of smell.

    It’s not that I mind using a fresh, clean towel, but is it just me or do the cheap towels dry better?

  13. Awesome sin-towel analogy, Jon. Paints a great picture of how we twist our sin to justify it and make it fuzzy.

  14. …And going from this post and comments this must be why God thought Adam needed Eve. “Someone’s going to need to remind man that his towel stinks.”

    :)

    Nice illustration.

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