When I was an associate pastor at a church near Portland, Oregon, I was also a part-time manager of the townhouse complex where we lived. Once a month, I would attend a manager's meeting for the property management company that ran our complex. So I would meet managers from all around the Portland Metro area. I can still remember one of the meetings I attended. One of the managers told us that she had a group of tenants, a couple actually, that she had to evict earlier that month. They were living in total squalor. She had warned them that January in writing about their behavior. Finally, in August, she had to forcefully evict them. Why? During their entire time there, almost a year, they hadn't taken out the trash once. The property management company needed to bring in a 40-foot dumpster just to clean out their apartment.

For the follower of Christ, regular confession and repentance of sin is like taking out the trash. So the question for us is, How long has it been since I've taken out the trash? Has trash taken up residence in my soul? Or do I need a 40-foot dumpster to take it away?