Spring Cleaning!

Spring is in the air around here! It makes me want to spring clean my house. My girls are convinced that I spring clean all year around, but they exaggerate I’m sure. Still, it is true…

I do love to spring clean and get everything back in order and arranged in a nice clean place. I love the fresh, starting over, cleaning out the old clutter and bringing in that new feeling that comes with spring cleaning.

People are the same. We have to be empty of us--in order for God to fill us with Himself and it can get kind of messy sometimes in the process of “cleaning our house”. Is it corny to want to spring clean my heart? I don’t think so.  Have you ever taken the time to check for cob webs and search out the messy places of your heart? Maybe things are in the wrong place or there are down right dirty places that I would be embarrassed
if anyone saw them.

In my “spring cleaning” the last few weeks, I've made some decisions. I have pin pointed some places in my life that I want to clean up and make better. I've been praying hard and long for my family. I think having one daughter married and one planning a wedding this year, has made me take a hard look at how I've raised them. What kind of baggage will they have to over come because of things I failed to change and clean up in my life? What good things have I passed on to them that will help them be or do anything for God?

True introspection is not an easy thing. If I get critical and judgmental, I see nothing good in anything or anybody and I get depressed. If I allow pride in my heart then I'm not being honest and that dishonesty will distort and cloud my own thinking. It's just my opinion but I think it's easier for others to see our faults, than it is for us to see our own!

One decision I have made is to value and take seriously, the people who feel they see a family curse or something in my life that I might be doing, that is wrong. It doesn’t feel good to sit and listen to someone tell you what they see that might be wrong with you and your family. But if it's a true friend and they are Godly, you will be better for it and they are going to love you anyway!

Proverbs 27:6 says, “ Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”

One way I have found to weed out real friends who want to help, from those who just want to judge, is to
measure them by God’s Word. Proverbs 27:17 “Iron sharpeneth iron so a man sharpeneth the
countenance of his friend.” Does the conversation with my friend leave me confused and discouraged or am I challenged to want to change for the better to be more like the Lord? Good Godly counsel is worth more than most people realize. It seems the older I get, the more I realize that I have not arrived! In fact, I'm not even on the right road sometimes.

What a blessing it is to have God’s Word and godly friends who are willing to step out on a limb to speak a word in due season.

Another decision I have made is to simply call sin in my life exactly what it is…. Sin!  It's so easy to justify and make excuses for myself and it's so easy to blame others for my actions. The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9 This is a powerful verse. The truth is, I can pretend all is well and try to impress others. I can also make myself look needy, to get attention I want from others. My heart is deceitful above all things! I am capable of anything. Praise God I don’t have to live that way! I have a God who can search out my heart and convict me of my sinful thinking. If I am willing to ask, He will help me see what He sees and will help me to change.

Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

What a gracious God! His Word changes my heart every time I read it.  What God has shown me in the spring cleaning and introspection of my heart is to not be afraid to ask Him to reveal what He sees in me and to find Godly friends to ask as well. Godly counsel is priceless. When my girls and I clean the windows of our house, we do it together.  One can usually see what another cannot. It may get annoying to have every little spot pointed out but the end result is so good.

I’m learning that it is important to be honest with myself. It’s not ok to look good on the outside and still be ugly on the inside. I don’t like it when my kitchen looks good and then you open a cupboard door and things fall out all over me. I think the Lord feels the same way about my heart!

Psalm 51:6 “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.”

I just need to clean it all up. God already knows what is inside! I’m so thankful that my Lord doesn’t give up on me. I’m a work in progress and He is so good to keep working His cleanup job on me!