February 7, 2023
“Time To Clean The Bird Poop Out”
In 1978 my parents retired from their jobs with major companies and stepped out in faith to buy an established jewelry store. Since the previous owner of the jewelry store had been a clock repairman that fixed antique windup-type clocks, the customers expected us to continue to work on these types of clocks. Without any formal training my father, who only had a high school education, but was very mechanically minded taught himself to work on these types of clocks.
An elderly lady who had been a store customer for years owned an antique genuine Swiss-made cuckoo clock. This was not a cheap replica or knockoff. This clock had been made by craftsmen in Switzerland and was very well made. The clock had two cuckoo birds that would come out of the clock and make a cuckoo sound as they announced the time. For example, at 3 a clock the birds would come out and cuckoo three times. It was a very complex mechanism that made all of this happen.
One day the lady came into the jewelry store and introduced herself and asked if we still worked on clocks. My father assured her that they did but that he was still learning how. She said, “Well over the years when my cuckoo clock stopped working the previous owner would come out to my house and clean the bird poop out of it. My dad didn’t know what to say. He assured her that he would make an appointment and come and look at it.
When a clock repairman works on a windup clock most of the time what they do is oil the pivots on the gears, bushings, and other parts that make all of the wheels and gears turn to make the clock run. The repairman calls this “a cleaning and oiling” job. This sweet lady over the years had heard the previous owner talk about doing a cleaning and oiling job on her clock so she assumed that he meant that he was cleaning out the bird poop.
In our lives we let bird poop build up in our hearts and minds and it needs to be cleaned out. For example, I had gotten into the bird poop habit of coming home and turning on the TV or playing games on the computer. I recently picked up some books on holiness that I had been wanting to read. I turned off the TV and closed the computer and just spent several hours getting immersed in the presence of the Lord by reading about His holiness.
I found myself thinking what a waste of time I had been doing with bird poop things when I could have been being blessed by the things of God. In of themselves, TV and video games are not sinful stuff. But compared to coming into the presence of the living, Holy, Loving God – they are bird poop.
So why not allow the Holy Spirit to do a deep inspection of your life and see what “bird poop” you have that needs to be cleaned out? I promise you that your life will run smoother and you will be blessed more by doing so. Jesus said it best in Matthew 6:33 “Seek you first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these other (worldly) things will be given to you”
n love with Jesus – Gary Mimbs