Ew. That looks like mold.

A “through the bible” devotion from Leviticus 14.

As soon as the water receded, they moved in. Volunteers from all over the country showed up and started mucking out homes that had been under three feet of hurricane storm surge water. Once the sheetrock gets wet, the mold will begin to grow in a humid Florida climate.

If you’re not familiar, “mucking” means ripping out any and all the walls that have been underwater. If you don’t do that, the mold will grow. It will grow behind the walls. It will grow quickly. It will contaminate the air in your home. Before you know it, you’re sneezing, coughing, and sniffing from the black mold growing in your home.

In the bible, it’s the priest’s job to deal with the mold in your home.

“When you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as a possession, and I put a spot of leprosy on a house in the land of your possession, then the one who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, ‘Something like a spot of leprosy has become visible to me in the house.’ The priest shall then command that they empty the house before the priest goes in to look at the spot, so that everything in the house need not become unclean; and afterward the priest shall go in to look at the house” (Leviticus 14:34-36).

I’ve sat in homes that made me sneeze, sniffle, and cough. Maybe it was the cat. Maybe it was the garbage. It could have been the dirty carpet. Mold? Maybe. Maybe it was something else. All I know is that it wasn’t healthy.

God cares about your physical and spiritual health. And sometimes that means you need to clean up whatever is making you sneeze, sniffle, or cough.

Our church had to deal with some roof leaks. A member stopped attending worship, claiming that some of the carpet had gotten wet and moldy. We analyzed the air, replaced the carpet, and fixed the roof. That member never came back to church. Even though the pastor (the priest) said it was all good. Go figure.