Streams in the wasteland...

Lay aside those 'things' which encumber you - keeping you from who God wants you to be.

I am on a quest to lay aside all the 'stuff' that has cluttered my house. I am one of those people who loves to hang on to 'things' - because it reminds me of something good or of someone whom I dearly treasure OR because I just might use it 'someday'. Well, for the most part 'someday' never really happen and all this stuff just piles and piles and piles up. Now, mind you, they are very, very neat piles. I have a little stack here, a little stack there, a pile in this corner and a pile in that corner, a pile in the living room, a stack in the kitchen. They kinda creep up on me. I think, oh, I'll put it here and get to it in a couple of days - a month later I'm totally overwhelmed and don't know where to start in to clean it up. I then get the very noticeable piles - the ones in my way - cleaned up, but then don't get to the little stacks that are in a corner. I seem to never get to those piles. I've had the same piles of paperwork in my office for 3 years - stuff that are remnants of previously piles sorted that I have to 'deal with'. I never seem to have the extra time I know it's gonna take to handle it.

I was thinking on this a while back and the Lord showed me it's kinda like this with our hearts - our lives and sin. We deal with the obvious sin committed, confess, ask God for forgiveness, clean it out of our heart. But, then there's the little itty bitty sin or the sin that's not so obvious or the sin that we don't want to admit is there - the sin that we don't want anyone to know about or the sin we don't want to let go of because it's what we know and it's too hard and too much work to dig deep to expose the roots in order to dig it out. It's those corners of our heart that God wants to expose His light to - His word to & clean up. It's in letting go of those little piles of 'stuff' that we want to hang on to which brings us the total freedom we are seeking for.

What "stuff" is He asking you to lay aside in order for you to fully experience His freedom?

Isaiah 43:18 Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.