Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Spring Cleaning of the heart



Spring Cleaning of the Heart


I am not sure when it happened, or even how it happened. I believe it must have started with my Mom. You know how their habits, that you will never mimic because they rubbed you the wrong way, you tend to end up doing. Spring cleaning I believe must have been one of them. How do I know? I hear the groan from my daughter every time I announce we have a new project we need to get done! Cleaning out a closet, a room re-organization, new painting that might need to be done. It seems the list can keep you quite busy for some time. And somewhere in the deepest part of my brain I hear that still small voice, no not the Holy Spirit, my Mom telling me what to do, when to do it and would you please get rid of all those things you don’t need.

But the thing that is happening along with cleaning is that still small voice of the Holy Spirit. As the air is filtrating through the house, clean and fresh, it seems my spirit is longing for that same clearing out of the clutter. Dispensing of old habits and thoughts that do not line up with my Father. The Bible says “Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me”…we need that renewing, that refreshing, I could go on and  on and let you know the tears that I have cried over my selfishness in the light of my heart or I could tell you of my skinned knee's trying to make myself honorable in God's sight but you have your own stories where this story fits you and only you. You know your mountains and the re-shaping, re-thinking of your circumstances that only God can show you to change you. The hardest reality I have faced is seeing the love of God. Realizing that no matter how "honorable" I try to be, that the reality is that God doesn't want me to work so hard at it. He just wants me to be "me" because that is who He made me to be.

 If you are like me you don’t just go to the Lord in prayer and ask, I am prompted by reading (or washing of the Word), sermons that go down deep to that inner being and wake it up where it has been asleep, and that quiet time where I know to “Be still and know that I am God”. That place that trust, faith and love intercept and He takes me by the hand to yet a deeper walk on the water than ever before.  So the clearing out, the skinned knee's, the heart wrenching rears are all worth it when you walk into the deeper love that you thought could never exist.

Happy Cleaning ladies :)