When You Get Your Hands Dirty and It’s the Most Beautiful Thing

So if I’m your teacher and lord and have just washed your dirty feet, then you should follow the example that I’ve set for you and wash one another’s dirty feet. Now do for each other what I have done for you. I speak to you a timeless truth: a servant is not superior to his master, and an apostle is never greater than the one who sent him. Now put into practice what I have done for you, and you will experience a life of happiness enriched with untold blessings!

John 13:14-17 TPT

I remember when my oldest was wobble-walking around the park, hesitantly exploring. I remember her little voice insisting on a wet wipe. Not understanding her adamancy, I handed her a wipe from the diaper bag and watched to see what she would do with it.

The peanut of a girl sat herself down, removed a shoe, and persistently tried to wipe away the sand from her feet. I humored her for a while, then encouraged her to not mind the sand and to play instead.

Less than two minutes passed, though, before she asked for another wet wipe. That was the day I knew that this little one really did not like to get dirty.

In my grown-up life, I can relate, if I’m honest.

I’m not one to get dirty on purpose. I’d rather stop the mess than clean the spill, donate resources and keep my time.

I kinda like my routine, though it took me most of my life to realize it. I find the quiet of consistency more soul-fulfilling than the thrill of an adrenaline-pumping adventure. I’d rather not stand in pouring rain, take the hills and curves of one-lane Kentucky backroads fast, or disappoint anyone because I offered a yes before calculating the cost.

I’d take the calm, the comfortable, the convenient.

But sometimes loving others well means wading deep into the messy pieces of life, staying with someone else through the crash of waves, being present because presence has a way of fueling hope.

Sometimes it looks like making a quadruple batch of loaded potato soup, watching someone’s kids, or giving up a Saturday to ease someone else’s burden.

Sometimes following those God-nudges means you’ll get a little dirty, be a little inconvenienced, become a little humbled.

Let’s flip the script

Have you ever had someone wash your feet? Like stoop down, take your feet in their hands, gently lower them into a basin of water, and wash them? I think the harder task is letting someone else wash your dirty feet.

As much as our selfishness can balk at the servant-living Jesus invites us to, there is another piece of the equation. For someone to do the giving, someone else has to do the receiving. Giving and receiving are inseparable. And I think Jesus meant it this way.

When we’re the one stretched thin, and others step in, let ripples from Jesus’s love inside them reach us, we learn what it’s like to have a need met. We learn how it feels to be loved in this way. We see how wildly beautiful it is when we show up for each other, don’t let each other face hard things alone, hold each other up through prayer and practical help.

And love is contagious. Loved people love deeply. Even when it’s messy. Even when it entails getting a little dirty.

If you’ve beat yourself up over the things you haven’t done, or the things you’ve said in haste, or the people you were too busy for, I pray that God would meet you in this very moment and overwhelm you with His extravagant love.

If you’ve never had someone wash your feet, walk with you through your mess, love you with the selfless love of Christ, I pray that He would bring someone into your life that will let His love ripple out to you in this way.

How to love selflessly (even when it means getting a little dirty)

I’m learning I can’t love like Jesus if I’m not willing to get a little messy, welcome some interruptions, choose people over to-do’s, and joyfully serve those around me.

But it’s not a have-not, or a must-do—and I’m learning this too.

It’s an I’m-infinitely-and-extravagantly-loved-by-God-so-I can’t-help-but-love-my-neighbors. It’s “liv[ing] in union with [Christ] as [my] source [so] fruitfulness will stream from within [me]” (John 15:5 TPT).

Only when we know how God loves us can we love our neighbors well.

His love erases the selfishness in our hearts and the pride that likes to color our lenses. It turns our tendency to protect and control in a different direction. It softens our hearts so humility, grace, and compassion can grow.

What if we saw serving our neighborhoods as an invitation to “a life of happiness enriched with untold blessings” (John 13:17 TPT), not as something we have to muster up the mental energy to do? What if we let God love us extravagantly through others and others extravagantly through us, and bind us all closer together through it?

We can take one step in this direction today by inviting God’s love to nourish us. John 15:9 tells us that we must “continually let [God’s] love nourish [our] hearts” (TPT). This means that we come close and often. We still and we surrender. We slow and we listen. We let God’s Word sink deep so it becomes louder than our busyness and excuses, our failures and hesitations.

When Jesus is our source, our lives produce abundant fruit. We know that we are freed because of love so we follow His example to love freely and fiercely. We stoop and bend, wash and serve, and discover a deeper, truer, purer happiness than we can know when we carefully guard our time and resources.

Jesus, help us to put into practice all that You have taught us. As we come daily to You, would You nourish the deepest places in our hearts? May we know how You love us so we can extend Your kind of love to our neighbors.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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