Cleaning Out – Devotion 131 – SEEING THE EXTRAORDINARY

My bushes were completely out of control on the front of my home. They looked diseased. They were overgrown. And then an aggravating vine began to wrap up everything, putting its sticky tentacles on the entire landscape. Enough was enough. I finally chose to have them all dug up, the whole thing. Whatever was there had to go. I needed a fresh start. I needed a clean slate. I wanted to be able to rethink how to make it beautiful again.

We do that with our closets, with our garages, with our cars, and our out-buildings. We clean out. When we have had enough of looking at it all, we finally begin to get rid of the unnecessary. We eliminate the things which carry a heavy weight. Sometimes it takes an event or a friend to encourage us to get rid of the excess. Sometimes it is because we are just so tired of looking at it.

We do this with so many things, why not with our lives? Why don’t we look at the things which are holding us back and begin to clean up? Why not look at the things we are reading or hearing or taking in and begin to evaluate the usefulness of it all? What about looking at the mistakes from our past that continue to haunt us or the things we wish we had done and start to clean out our hearts? Maybe it begins with forgiving ourselves. Maybe it begins with forgiving someone else. Maybe it is a matter of making better choices. It could be picking something valuable to read or hear. It might be allowing God to clean us up so that we can live free, really free.

I don’t know what your situation is, but you do. You know what needs to go. You know what is damaging your heart, suffocating your spirit, and keeping you from loving God and loving others. You know what needs to be cleaned out. Today, I pray that God shows you how to begin…one step at a time. Let’s clean up, clean out, and live free.

Focus Scripture:

Psalm 51:1-2, 10-12

¹Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
    blot out my transgressions.
²Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
    and cleanse me from my sin.

¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and put a new and rightspirit within me.
¹¹Do not cast me away from your presence,
    and do not take your holy spirit from me.
¹²Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and sustain in me a willingspirit.