The Nature of the Dust

Dusting.. It’s almost like a bad word even typing it 🙂  I am NOT a great duster.  It’s one of those chores in the house that feels so pointless.  We live in the country.  In the middle of cotton fields.  The minute I get one room dusted it always feels like it’s already time to dust it again. DUST is definitely EVERYWHERE for us.  But it’s everywhere for EVERYONE!  It’s one thing that ALL of us have in common.. we all have DUST.

It was time to dust again, and I was dreading it.  It was a nice spring day outside and honestly I would much rather be doing so many other things than cleaning, but here I was.. DUSTING…  I was not excited.  I had my pledge wipes out and cranked the music up.. anything to make this chore more exciting and fun! (80s Pandora here we go!)  I unloaded all the books off my bookshelf and took everything off the top of the dresser and night stand and began wiping everything down.  The bedroom blinds were raised letting some of the morning sunlight come in.  As I wiped away the dust on the shelves, which took several wipes per shelf, I couldn’t help but notice the dust particles filling the air.  I watched them for a minute as they slowly danced in the sunlight and then found their way back down to the shelves I had just wiped down.  “UGH”, I thought, “This is why I hate dusting!  It’s so pointless! The same dust settles before I’m even finished.”  And just like that I heard a whisper, “It’s just the nature of the dust April.”  Now, I’m not claiming to have ever heard an audible voice from God, but IF I was going to, THIS would be the time. The statement literally took me off guard and stunned me.  “What?” I asked.  I heard it again, “It’s just the nature of the dust.”  Ok, so maybe you and God talk about dust all the time, but this was definitely a new topic of conversation for me.  I sat in the floor and just listened for a few minutes.. the revelations that came next were so simple, yet they stuck with me and hit me deeply.

The nature of the dust is to get stirred up when you try to wipe it away.  Some of it gets wiped up, but then some of it just floats into the air only to resettle where you just dusted or sometimes even somewhere else.  If you have something laying on the surface, the dust easily floats around and settles closely to the outer edges of whatever is laying there, only to see the perfect outline of the item once you remove it.  It’s like chasing the dandelion petals in the wind.. you never know where they will go and it’s impossible to catch them all once you’ve lifted the flower into the wind.  The amount of dust you have in your home is DIRECTLY related to a few things and causes differences between us in how much dust we have it our homes.

1. Where you live determines how much dust you will have in your home – This means that because I live in the absolute center of cotton fields, I automatically get to deal with more dust than say someone who lives on a paved road with a small zero-scaped yard surrounded by other homes.
2. How often you dust your home will determine how much dust you LIVE with – This means that if you CHOOSE to dust everyday, you will naturally have LESS dust than someone who chooses to dust only one time a week – month – or year.
3. The quality of insulation around your windows, doors, etc will impact how much dust gets into your home – This means if you spend some extra money to seal up your windows and doors, even if you live in the country like me, you could significantly cut down on the dust you have to deal with.
4. If you open and close your windows and doors a lot or have a lot of people coming in and out of your home, you will experience MORE dust – even with the good insulation.  – This means that the amount of exposure you have to the outside, the number of people you have going in and out of your home, where those people go each day, and so much more, will impact the amount of dust that comes into your home and it’s almost beyond your control to change it.

Seems simple enough right?  All of these things are key indicators of how much dust you are exposed to in your home and all are ways you can CHANGE how much dust you have in your home.  Obviously NO ONE is exempt from dealing with DUST in their house, but we DO have control over HOW we deal with the dust and HOW MUCH dust we must continually live with.  You catching on yet?

Our lives all have those pieces that are just like the dust.  We are affected by what family we grew up in, the people we are around on a daily basis, whether or not we seek a life with Jesus, how much time we spend with Jesus if we DO choose Him, whether we have good support systems in place, and even the experiences we have.  How much time we spend cleaning up our baggage and how often we search our hearts directly impacts the amount of “dust” we continue to carry each day.  We come into relationship with Jesus and it’s like that first wipe of the dust rag.. such a drastic difference.  Things suddenly seem bright and we feel like we can conquer the world.  But then the ‘dust’ begins to settle from the air.  We may not even realize it has settled.  It’s such a faint layer of dust, so who even cares or will notice anyway.  Then suddenly some rough times hit, and another layer of dust piles on. The sting of a lost relationship and another layer of dust piles on… and on and on and on.  And before we know what’s happened we’ve let the dust get thick.  But then we choose to start spending more time with Jesus (swipe), and we start praying and listening to His voice more (swipe), and we find a good support system to help us be accountable for living right (swipe).  And suddenly the dust becomes less and less. 

Our lives will likely never be completely dust-free, but we can choose how we handle the dust and how often we look into our own lives to get rid of the dust.  So next time you’re pulling out those pledge wipes or that dust rag and dust spray, I hope you’ll ask yourself, “How’s the dust in my life?” And as you begin to dust off some things in your life if maybe it seems dim or like it’ll never get better, I hope you remember, “it’s just the nature of the dust” and as you stay consistent in your new dusting habits, you’ll start to see the dust for what it is… just a part of life in this world.

❤️ April