Category: Listening

I really don’t like that I have character flaws.

What I like even less is when those character flaws make a not only slightly noticeable, but a HUGE appearance. Never is this so true as when I am getting stressed out and need to find order somewhere. And that somewhere is typically my house. And that order I speak of is very hard to come by. Especially when I live with three other people (or slobs as I am known to call them when this particular character flaw is rearing its ugly head) who don’t care about order as much as I do.

Control. Obsession. More control. Compulsion. These are the character flaws that recently showed up again for me, and unfortunately my family, to see.

I like order. I don’t like chaos. I like organization. I don’t like mess. And when I am stressed I really need order and organization to be present in my home. And my family does not. Which becomes an issue. An ugly one. And I admit, I can get pretty ugly about it. To the point of berating, saying things in the heat of the moment that I can’t take back, and being generally mean. All because I haven’t gotten what I want – order and cleanliness.

But the real issue, (although I do need order and cleanliness) is how I handle stress, how I take on too much stuff so that I am stressed, how by controlling the house and the way it looks, I am trying to control one aspect of a life that I have in one way or another let get out of control.

Ouch. I don’t like talking about this. It’s too personal. It’s to vulnerable.

Yet when I put it out there, I am asking for help. For grace. For forgiveness.

I had to ask for forgiveness from my kids a few weeks ago for the way I handled the most recent bout of stress. I got angry and mean.

And they forgave me. Just like the Lord does when I choose to go with what I know instead of asking for His help. Just like the Lord does when He has been working on me in those areas and we have moved forward only for me to take two steps back.

I am so thankful for a God that loves me even when I mess up. I am so thankful for a God who forgives. I am so thankful for a God who keeps working on the same things in my life over and over to bring about His plan for me. And even though it is uncomfortable, I am thankful for a God who allows me to see my character flaws and how much I need His help overcoming me.

How is God building your character?

Today’s post is the eighth and final post in a series of posts about issues in our homes and hearts that may be in need of some spring cleaning. To read the first in the series, click here.

We’ve been working on our houses for a few weeks now. And if you are like me, you’ve probably been thinking about those areas that have been or currently are in desperate need of some cleaning out, reorganizing and washing. So, let’s talk about just how that necessary cleaning can take place.

First of all, we have to remember that our homes won’t clean themselves; it takes an act of our will to first decide that action needs to be taken and second to actually take that action – to get up and get to the hard work of cleaning. The same is true when it comes to purifying our hearts – it takes an act of our will to open ourselves up to allow God’s will to act on our hearts. It takes an act of our will to do the work that God may ask us to do in the process of this cleansing. We don’t actually do the cleaning on ourselves – that is God’s job, but where we differ from a house, we have to allow the cleaning to take place.

In addition, like a child that has to be shown how to clean and what to clean by someone who has done it before, we aren’t able to clean ourselves until God has shown us what needs to be cleaned. We may have other ideas about what needs to be cleaned in our lives, but only God knows where the really dirty spots are or where the junk is hiding out that needs to be taken out to the curb. It’s like if I were to tell Anne and Ty to go clean their rooms, but haven’t ever showed them what that means or how to do it, they will go in with their own ideas of what “clean” is. Only when I get in there with them and work with them will they see what I see and learn how to take care of it in the future.

That is a great parallel to what actually happened with humankind. You see, God gave us a way to clean ourselves up in the Old Testament. There was a whole book written about how to do it. It is called Leviticus. It is a fascinating, and yet very tedious and repetitive book. It says if X is true then Y is how you deal with it. It involves many different animals, their blood, water, fire, priests, you get the picture. It was a very detailed account for the Israelites to know how to be cleansed. The problem is, they just kept getting dirty again. So finally, God decided it was time to come down and get involved in the process. In fact, he didn’t just want to get involved, he wanted to do the cleaning for us. So He sent Jesus, who by his one-time sacrifice, gave us the opportunity to be cleansed forever. All we had to do was accept it.

And when we do, not only can we become clean, we become aware of God’s grace and our unworthiness to receive it. This is when we know that we cannot possibly get clean on our own and we have to give the glory to God for the changes in our lives.

Some of you may be wondering now, “I have given my heart over to God for cleansing and purifying, and yet I still struggle with some of these things.” We are human, we are going to struggle because  we are still in this world, but the important thing to remember is God is always ready and waiting to do a little more cleansing, but we have to invite him in and let him. Our houses don’t get clean all at once and stay that way, we have to continually work on  them. God has to always be at work on us, too, to bring His plan for our lives to completion.

I think about David’s psalm, written after His moral failure. Here is a man after God’s own heart and he made a big mess that was going to require  much cleaning. Hear what he says in Psalm 51.

¹ Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
² Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

³ For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
⁹ Hide your face from my sins

and blot out all my iniquity.

¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
¹⁴ Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
¹⁵ Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶ You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is^[b] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.

This passage contains both confession of the sin and acknowledgement of guilt as David asks for forgiveness and restoration. Then there is a cleansing and creating. The cleansing being asked for here is a cleansing of the inmost place, where only God can see. Before God creates in us a new heart, we have to be clean. And this new heart is a created heart. It is completely transformed. Not a bit of the old heart of stone remains. And when that heart is created, our response is worship.

So in this time of spring cleaning, as you work on the various rooms of your home, spend some time working on the various rooms and issues of your heart as well. And remember it is not your responsibility to decide what gets done, but God’s. And it is not your work to cleanse, but God’s. Your job is to be open to the Lord’s cleansing. We have to let Him in to do the job, and the way we let Him is through confessing our sin and asking Him for a new heart. Ask Him for a new heart today. I John 1:9 says If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Today’s post is the sixth in a series of posts about issues in our homes and hearts that may be in need of some spring cleaning. To read the first in the series, click here.

As we move from the top of the house and the attic to the bottom of the house and into the basement, I want you to picture the basement not as a finished living space, as many basements are these days, but a dirty and wet storage area.

The basement isn’t a place where you put special things. It is a place where you keep things that you aren’t ready to get rid of but things that you don’t want to show anyone. Here is where we keep the cast-offs of our excess. Here is where we can hide things.

The basement represents the deep dark places of our heart where we try to hide our secret sins. The stuff we don’t want anyone to see. The questionable magazine collections, the bottles we would never keep upstairs, the poor decisions we made in the past and the consequences of those actions.

The heart issues we need to deal with here are simple, sin and rebellion. This may be the hardest area to talk about because we all want to immediately say that we don’t have any hidden or unconfessed sin, but before we go to far, let’s remember what it says in 1 John 1:6-8:

⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all^[a] sin.  ⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

You see, when we hide our sin, we are not allowing ourselves to be cleansed from it.

So we have to go down there. We have to be faced with the contents, no matter what they are, and we have to decide what to do with them. Do we wipe things off and just put them back on the shelf? Or do we throw things away and thoroughly clean that area where they had been sitting? We have to choose whether or not we really want the basement to be cleaned out. We have to confess our sin and ask God’s forgiveness and healing into those deep, dark places in our hearts.

Today’s post is the fifth in a series of posts about issues in our homes and hearts that may be in need of some spring cleaning. To read the first in the series, click here.

Today, let’s work on the attic. What do we store in the attic? Often times it is a collection of old and historic items. I think of trunks full of grandmothers quilts, clothing that we tuck away for a season, clothing we tuck away thinking someday we’ll wear it again, family keepsakes, or  items we hold on to as a memory. In my “attic storage” places I have pictures and scrapbooks, my cowboy hat and boots, books I’ve read but don’t want to get rid of and all the prom dresses my mom made for me. I even have a milk crate full of stuff that I have kept from my school years.

A number of years back I dug into that milk crate and was surprised (and amused) to find all sorts of notes from my friends that I had kept. You know, the notes that you weren’t supposed to be passing in class? I had quite a few. Dozen. Or more. Some were really fun to read, and some made absolutely no sense to me at all without the context of high school life. And then I ran across some from an old boyfriend. And I realized that by holding on to those I was still kind of holding on to him. Or at least the idea of him. So I felt I needed to get rid of the notes, and I did. But I realized that wasn’t enough when he died recently and I was really shaken. I had gotten rid of the physical evidence of that “lost love” but hadn’t fully let him go. Now, I don’t want you to think that I have been pining away for him for years, but just like the papers at the bottom of the pile in the office, there was some stuff I had buried instead of really dealing with head on.

What we have to learn here is that while holding on to some of these things has value, how many of those old things in our attic represent something in our life that we are holding on to from the past? Some things may be good to keep if we use them as reminders of God’s provision and protection, but not if we are pining for a lost love or mourning a lost dream by holding on to these things from the past, whether they be physical or emotional. When we are holding on to the past, we aren’t living in the present and appreciating what God has given to us and where He has placed us here and now. In addition, we are not looking forward to where He is calling us to go from here.

So we have to look into our hearts and find out what the issue is. Are we afraid of the future? Do we lack of trust in God and His promises? Do we feel like God hasn’t gotten it right? Are we unhappy with where we are because we are too busy looking backwards and spending our time on “if only…?”

It may be time to clean out the attic and let some things go.

What are some things that you keep or have kept in your attic that have surprised and amused you? (My parents once had an accordion they kept in the attic – that was always a fun one for us girls.)

Today’s post is the fourth in a series of posts about issues in our homes and hearts that may be in need of some spring cleaning. To read the first in the series, click here.

As our Spring Cleaning continues, we need to move on to the bathroom and specifically the medicine cabinet. Our medicine cabinets often get filled with outdated prescription and non-prescription drugs that we needed at one time, but instead of getting rid of them when they are no longer needed, we have held onto them just in case. Yet, the time has come to dispose of them because they are no longer healthy for us – either because they are expired or because they are a temptation or a crutch that we hold on to.

Pills aren’t the only way we medicate ourselves. The medicine cabinet represents the other drugs in our lives like television, books, gossip, the internet, alcohol, and many other things that can be used as medication to try to escape pain that we live with daily. While some of these things aren’t good in any amount, others may not inherently be bad for us. But, when we use them as an escape, or to an unhealthy degree, we are abusing them, and most likely we are masking the underlying issues rather than treating them. For this reason, we need to clean them out of our lives.

The real issue involved here is a heart that is broken or injured in some way and needs healing, and simply medicating ourselves isn’t dealing with the problem at hand.

So just like in our medicine cabinet we need to keep some items like band-aids and antibiotic ointment that promote healing for our bodies, we need to keep prayer, our Bibles, and friends that build us up to promote healing of our hearts. Instead of seeking escape and medication, we need to be seeking the Lord’s healing of our pain so that we don’t need to medicate ourselves anymore.

And just like anyone who has had to take a daily medication for any period of time can tell you that it is so nice when you don’t have to take that medication anymore, when your heart is healed and you aren’t running for whatever it is that you run to for “medication,” you will be freed up in a new way.

What “medications” did I miss here? Can you think of others?

(For more about the things we run to vs. the ONE we should run to, read this post.)

Today’s post is the third in a series of posts about issues in our homes and hearts that may be in need of some spring cleaning. To read the first in the series, click here.

Today, let’s talk about the office, which in our house looks more like a desk stuck in the dining room. Here is where we keep important papers, bills and other things that need our attention.

On one hand, I think this area of the home represents our priorities. What are those priorities? What should they be? Are they priorities with how we spend our time? Our money?

On the other hand, this area of the home also represents our lack of priorities. How much stuff do we just place in a pile on the desk because we probably need to do something with it, but don’t know what or don’t want to take the time to do it right now?

Guess what? I found both when I tackled the desk last night. I found (I shouldn’t say found, I know they were there and they weren’t lost) receipts and bills that had come in the mail in the last week that I had set aside for this week’s bill-writing extravaganza (makes it sound more fun, doesn’t it?) That’s a priority for me, keeping up with bills and staying on top of our finances. I also came across last year’s summer calendar where I had laid out the kids’ activities and the babysitter’s schedule. Both of these are things I would expect to find on the desk. After all, financially we have a responsibility to give to the Lord first, as well as pay our creditors. (Read more about this here.)We also have a responsibility to arrange our calendars around our priorities. But many find that finances and time are two of the hardest things to clean out and organize. What do we say no to? How do we give that much to God when we are struggling to pay our bills? And so the office remains cluttered and disorganized because it is easier to let it go than to face the necessary work to bring order. What are the heart issues involved here? Submission? Obedience?

Now, the other part of what I found appalled me. And it is my desk. 🙂 I found so much stuff that I had just set in a pile on the desk to take care of “later.” The problem is, later never came (until last night). It wasn’t anything pressing or time-sensitive. It wasn’t even anything important. It was just a lot of “stuff” that I could have and should have dealt with at the moment it came in the house. It was school policy manuals. It was the “extra” school pictures – the ones left after I had given away what I needed to. It was random pieces of paper that I didn’t need to keep in the first place. Much of what I found was stuff that could either be thrown away, filed or had a place but just hadn’t made it there. And what is scary to me is I tend to be a pretty organized person and I like order. Yet, instead of dealing with this stuff, it was easier to just let it sit there and pile up.

Is it true that this is what we do in our hearts, too? Do we deal with the stuff that we see as priority in our lives and let the stuff we perceive as “little” or “can be taken care of later” go? And how do we determine those priority things? Do we fix and keep in order the stuff that other people see or are affected by simply because it can be seen and monitored – like bills that need to be paid because when they are not people notice? Do we let those things that can’t be seen by others continue to live on in our hearts and pile up?

The problem with living this way is eventually, the pile will get big and will require our attention. And it may be that some of it is very easy to deal with, and some of it may be a little harder, but the longer you wait, the more time it will take to take care of it.

The good news is, if we ask, God will help us to see those areas if our hearts that are “piling up,” and He can help us get them back in order. So, as you work on spring cleaning your office (or desk stuck in the dining room), think and pray about the office in your heart and do some work there, too.

Oh, and I’d love to hear about the things that you find piled up in your real offices.

Today’s post is the second in a series of posts about issues in our homes and hearts that may be in need of some spring cleaning. To read the first in the series, click here.

Let’s begin our spring cleaning with one of the first, and probably easiest, places I find myself needing to clean out – my closet. You know, the place where I have enough clothes and shoes for a small army. I actually conquered this area of my house this past weekend. Five large garbage bags later, I could actually put the clothes I wear away because there was room for them once I took out everything that I hadn’t worn for over a year or didn’t fit me the way I like clothes to fit or just wasn’t my style anymore.

I think the closet represents the excesses that we have in our lives. Do we really need to have that many pairs of shoes? That many shirts? That many pairs of jeans? How much of what hangs in our closets has actually been worn in the last 12 months? 50%? Less? What other excesses do we have in our lives? Is our pantry over-filled with food? Are our entertainment centers overflowing with DVDs? Think about your house. What areas do you think of when I suggest that we have many excesses in our lives? I am sure you can think of at least one. Perhaps some of you are like me and can think of many.

The most telling thing for me is that sometimes, instead of thinking about all the stuff that I have, some of which is in excessive amounts, I often find myself thinking about what I don’t have instead. And if that’s not enough, I find myself wanting even more. Like when I have a closet full of clothes and find myself not happy with any of them and wanting different ones. Or when I have a perfectly good laptop that is a few years old, but I really want a new one.

What’s going on in my heart? Greed? Self-preservation? Lack of generosity? Have I allowed myself to get too caught up in the consumer culture that I live in? Maybe it is a little of all of the above. So, as I clean out the closets in my house, I need to allow the Lord to clean up the closets of my heart where needed. So I ask for His guidance to show me what needs to go and what needs to stay.

How about you? Are there some excesses in your life that need God’s help?