‘Tis the season for water activities in the yard. Hot temperatures and blue skies means we roll out the hose, sprinkler, and water toys. I can remember growing up running around barefoot through the yard, Super Soaker in hand, trying to dodge a barrage of water balloons and the jet spray of the hose. And now that we have kids, we get to relive those experiences. These are some of my favorite summer memories.

But inevitably, it’s time to go inside. 9-year-old me assumes it’s totally fine to go inside as is—but my Mom knew different. My feet were covered in grass clippings. Like, a shocking amount of grass clippings. In my hair, on my arms, on my legs, on my feet. Everywhere. In places I didn’t think where possible to get grass clippings. So many grass clippings. So my Mom simply rinsed me off, making sure I’m good to go in the house again. It’s a simple process.

About 10 minutes ago, my wife rinsed off the feet of my kids after playing with water toys in my yard. I mowed the grass yesterday. So, you guessed it: ALLLLLL the grass clippings. But my wife is a good mom. She takes care of them and helps clean up their messes, even when they don’t realize they’ve made one.

I can’t think of a more perfect analogy to the relationship between us and God. For thousands of years, we’ve been making messes. Some, we know about. We repent from those. We ask for forgiveness for those. Those are easy to spot. But sometimes we walk around never noticing that we’ve got grass clippings on the bottoms of our feet. We think we’re all clean, but then our hearts reveal that we’ve been missing something this whole time.

As Christians, it’s easy to point out certain mistakes. We know when we’ve lied, we know when we’ve stolen, we know when we’ve cheated. And we are quick to call those sins out, too. But some sins are hidden. So hidden, in fact, we don’t even know they exist in our hearts until they metastasize into something, we didn’t know we were capable of.

Racism is like that. Yes, it’s easy to tell that someone who uses racial slurs in their everyday language is racism. Yes, it’s easy to tell that someone who tells jokes at the expense of people of color is racist. But sometimes racism is so engrained in our background, our upbringing, and the culture around us that we don’t even realize we are participating.

If your first instinct to seeing the phrase “Black Lives Matter” is to respond with “All Lives Matter”, or in response to the pleading from the black community to end police brutality, you say, “Not all cops are bad”, or you try and rationalize the murder of a black man by claiming, “Well, he was no angel—I’m sure there was a reason for it”: you may not say the words, or tell the jokes, or necessarily “look” the part—but I’m here to tell you, you’ve got grass clippings on the bottom of your feet.

All of these responses are a part of the problem. And these are all responses I have personally given. I am a part of the problem. In order to be a part of the solution, we MUST ask God to wash our feet. The problem may not be obvious—but the solution is. Stop, listen, and seek repentance. God is pretty good with a garden hose, and He’ll get you cleaned up.