All of us have days when we work hard but accomplish little. One of my daily prayer requests is for God-prompted efficiency, but it doesn’t always pan out that way.

Today, my first day back from England, I’d hoped to get much accomplished and started the laundry first thing. It wasn’t long, though, before I got distracted by other chores, and inefficiency took over. When I finally got back to the wash machine hours later, I opened the lid and groaned. I’d forgotten to check my pockets, and the black wash was dotted with hundreds of tiny, sticky bits of wet Kleenex.

As I lifted the clothes from the washer, pieces of matted tissue flicked onto me and the rug, and also back into the wash tub. I stood and picked at the clothes for a long time before putting them in the dryer, berating myself for such inefficiency.

Then later, on the fourth load, the very same thing happened! Hundreds more pieces of wet tissue had to be picked off of more clothes, inefficiency on steroids.

Isn’t sin much like that? We tuck away a little something negative and figure we’ll take care of it later. It may stay hidden for weeks or even years without causing any trouble, and we may even have forgotten about it. Then suddenly it makes a reappearance that looks nothing like the original. It’s bigger, stickier, a problem multiplied to the point of requiring major damage control.

Most of us find it hard to always do things right. We’re better at cutting corners, fudging the truth, and enjoying corrupt thoughts. Even when we know we’re on a path we shouldn’t be, we’re reluctant to get back on track right away. We say, “Yes, I’ll definitely correct that, just not right now.”

I’d like to think that after we make enough messes, we’ll learn not to repeat our mistakes. But my wash day mayhem proves otherwise. Intentions are one thing, actions another.

Thankfully, God wants to help. He starts each of us off with a tender conscience and urges us to pay attention to it. If we ignore his promptings, we can count on extensive clean-up later.

But every new day offers another chance to do things well. Just as my dryer’s lint screen caught many of the tissue bits on my clothes, God makes sure our sin catches us, then sees that we deal with the consequences. But after we clean up our messes, his offer is always for a new chance to try for righteous living.

Maybe a good prayer at the start of each day isn’t a request for efficiency but for a passion to do things right the first time around.

“The Lord will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart.” (1 Corinthians 4:5)