Mon, 25-Mar-2013 - Deep Cleaning

Shower in Nature, a photo by Shelle Ette on Flickr.

There is something beautiful about getting clean, but the process to get clean sometimes gets us so dirty.  The past year, as I reflect, God has cleaned up a lot of parts of my life.  I had friends, acquaintances, stuff in my life that were not good and often times, I didn't realize the extent of how bad those things were for my life until they were gone.

My husband and I have been working on detailing the inside of our car, after the years of detailed neglect and abuse from the kids and my not being aware of how much yuck had accumulated and stuck itself in those hidden places.  Even after vacuuming up all the stuff under and behind the seats, we uncovered more things to take care of.  It required putting on gloves, using tools and supplies to get the car clean.

The more we cleaned, the more we realized that more needed to be cleaned.  The process is not complete and has been a step-by-step.  Sometimes we work on it together.  Other times it's separately as we each need to attend to different things.

What is the spiritual application here?  Sometimes when God does a deep cleaning in our lives, the initial stuff has to be removed first and then it reveals other things that need to be cleaned out.  It's a layering removal process.  There were times we had to use good force to get stuck on gum in the carpet using a flathead screwdriver and soaking it in a solution, then forcing it out.

Well, we need to soak in the Word of God, in His Presence with praise, worship, and thanksgiving.  In Psalm 100 it talks about this.  Then, God will sometimes bring something along that can help get us in the direction we need, and as we repent, renounce of those sins in our lives, God brings a cleaning, a refreshment and new life into our lives.

Just yesterday, the car was feeling much better after my husband and I worked on cleaning the car.  Today there is more cleaning, and it's giving the inside of the car a totally new appearance, revitalizing what was old, stale, unattractive into something new, inviting, comfortable.

What needs cleaning in your life that God is urging you in?

Sun, 23-Sep-2012 -- Clean Up

Clean Up, a photo by Mike Hohman on Flickr.

The process of cleaning up my life has taken quite a few years and the past 3 weeks, I've really ramped up this clean-up for the remaining unhealthy things I was holding onto.  The clean-up has been a result of identifying areas that I was hanging onto that were unhealthy, ungodly, living on the fence.  It's led to many hours of discussions with God, my beau, and soul searching as why all this mess was in my life.  Most messes in our lives were not the result of a big catastrophe, rather they were little compromises here and there that ultimately resulted in some big negative event in one's life.

The clean-up has resulted in seeing what was on the internet of my stuff and through nearly a decade of posting on the internet, there are thousands of pieces of items, things that when I posted I thought was a good idea, but now, years later, I no longer want all that stuff out there.  I've been deleting accounts (thankfully that even though I don't remember specifics of those accounts, with enough information, I could still get the accounts deleted), deleting contacts & "friends", deleting items & posts, pictures.

Not only that, I've been deleting phone #s, blocking #s and email addresses, deleting files on my computer, especially in areas where I had unhealthy, ungodly ties to others.  Maybe I wasn't experiencing the success I wanted was because I was hanging onto these things, thinking I needed them.  The reality was when I completely let go of every aspect of these things, I began to have freedom and the weights, the familiar weight, was lifted off.

Nearly 6 yrs ago, I went through a blood line cleansing where a lot of spiritual familiar spirits were lifted off me, but since I continued to a small degree to entertain them, some of them came back again and attached themselves to me.  In my own power, at times, I tried to get rid of them, but couldn't.  You can't get rid of these things if you continue to walk in sin because that opens the door to demonic activity to work in your life.

2008 I went through more spiritual cleaning of my life and now, I am ready to completely cut the ties on these things once and for all.  I've made it so that certain people can never contact me again, and I'm now walking in the freedom I should've way back 6 yrs ago, but didn't.  You can't have one foot in God's kingdom and the other foot in sin.