Cabin Inspection

I live on a ship. And as one of the leaders, one of the jobs I sometimes have to do is inspect crew cabins, a safety and hygiene requirement for the ship.
Along with a colleague, I am required to check that garbage has been taken out, floors vacuumed, linen changed more than annually (!!), electrical appliances have been safety approved, and all food is covered.
We provide some incentives for people on board to keep a nice cabin. If they get a number of '1's (perfect score - nothing wrong in the cabin), they can get a free coke. And if they get a 5 (BAD NEWS), the captain comes to visit... scary stuff!

It's funny to see how the young people on board deal with these inspections. A few forget, but most go into cleaning mode on Thursday nights or Friday mornings, before our Friday afternoon inspections. It's hard to find a vacuum cleaner at these times!

Today a young woman saw us inspecting a cabin a few doors before hers, and gasped, 'Is it Friday today?!', while running to her cabin for a quick tidy-up.

Many people take pride in their collection of '1's, and I've been bribed with sweets, crackers, ingratiating smiles and florid apologies if they are present when I find something wrong. We all have a laugh about it - it's something we have to do but better to make it fun.

If we ever find uncovered food, no matter how tidy the cabin is otherwise, it's an automatic 5.

Today I gave two 5's for this reason. In one cabin, it was for a tub of open flour, (go figure!), but the other was for a sandwich sitting on someone's shelf in an otherwise spotless cabin.

Her cabin-mate was in the room:
'But she's the baker. She's just come back from work and put it there.'
'Was she just here?'
'I don't know, I just got here.'
'Then we have no way of knowing how long it's been there. It attracts cockroaches. Sorry, I have to give you a 5.'
'Noooooo! We've never had worse than a 3 before!!'
'Sorry.'

We were friends before and we're still friends now. A cabin inspection is just a cabin inspection. But this brings parallels to my mind.

- As Christians, do we tidy the 'cabins' of our lives up when we know people are going to notice?
- Before then, is there frantic cleaning up and hiding of the rubbish?
- What are the cabins like during the rest of the week? (According to my carpenter friend who helped me inspect today, the immaculate cabins are often a shock when he comes unexpectedly to work in them at other times.)
- Do we live according to rules - 'Thou shalt nots', and not see the heart of why Christ calls us to live a certain way? Someone who understands and deals daily with the very real issue of cockroach infestation on a ship would never leave their sandwich open on a shelf. As we understand who God has called and enables us to be in this lost world, we would not willfully entertain sin, no matter how 'small', because we are being transformed into Christ's likeness.

We don't know when we will meet Christ. He will either come when we least expect it, or our lives will end first, often unexpectedly. I'm sure He won't treat our lives like a cabin inspection, but I wonder if we'll be ready.

'Lord, I'm so glad You came... look what a great Christian I've been! I've been doing this, this, that and the other! My attitude has cleared up a lot, I'm involved in evangelism, I'm loving my neighbour.'
'Uh-huh, and what about this 'sandwich' on your shelf?'
'That?! Oh, I just put that there for a moment.... it wasn't there before!'
'But it's there now.'
'Um. Yes. It's just a little sandwich....'


This causes me to rejoice at God's incredible grace - we have so much worse than sandwiches on our shelves! But it's also reminding me that sin is sin is sin, no matter how insignificant it may seem. When Christ returns, I want to have nothing to be ashamed of. I want to hear 'Well done, good and faithful servant' instead.