I keep seeing analogies recently. I don't know what that means about me... just that I keep seeing them. They keep popping up like those annoying games at chucky cheese's where you have to constantly hit them until no more pop up. (I'm thoroughly convinced that a parent invented that game based on the easy amusement of kids. What completely worthless, but utterly time consuming activity can we get kids to pay to play!!)
1. I put my dog in her kennel last night after yelling at her for some miscreant behavior. I however did not lock the kennel. She was free to come and go, but it took her a record 10min to figure this out and actually test the door to see if she could open it. I think that is similar to how we approach God sometimes. We sit looking out the door the we think He has locked, and we never once go push on it to see if perchance He's left it without lock and key. Obviously there are times you wouldn't want to push on doors that God has closed, so the analogy breaks down. But when you know its in an area of freedom in your life in Christ, or direction that you know He wants you to go eventually... why not at least nudge it a little with your nose and see if God has opened the way for you to be free?
2. I was cleaning dishes last night. Don't ask why, but I felt like doing dishes, which is entirely uncharacteristic for me, and so I thought I would take advantage of it! Anywho... I was going to drain the sink so I could clean it. (yeah, again, don't ask. I have no idea what got into me) However like any good unmaintained sink the draining on this sink was sluggish. And by sluggish I mean, like go scrub the entire bathtub and the toilet and then come back, it might be drained. I am sometimes however a resourceful person, and was able to pull from my extensive dish-washing knowledge (thank you, growing up in a large family!) and ascertain that it was not actually the sink inself that was deficient in its duties. See in our sink, (one of those old models) there is not an "in-sink-erator" (in other words, a garbage disposal). In fact, in our sink the garbage disposal consists of two things: a small seive that fits over the drain spout, and.... wait for it... YOU! I heard a quote once that I particularly liked. It was something to the effect of: what really seperates the boys from the men is the ability to bare-handedly clean out the stopper on the sink without holding it at arms length away from your body. Anyway, it was indeed the sink stopper that was the issue. Have you ever reached down through dirty soapy, now greasy, after-dishes-water that is slightly cooling, add in some floating spaghetti for snake-like effect, and a few other ambiguous chunks of disgarded food and MMMMMMmmmm! (don't you just feel like eating now??) only to pull up a seive that wow... should have been cleaned a log time ago. Pretty sure there are more gross things in life... but I haven't seen many of them! (and I'm a nurse and I've been to Africa!) Now the way a seive is supposed to work is that things are supposed to be filtered through the little hole and not allowed to go down the drain and clog it at some undisclosed juncture or bend in the pipe. However, water has these amazing corosive effects on almost any food substance and over time, what should have been caught in the seive and cleaned out had been permanently caked into the holes not allowing any of the water to flow down the drain as it should. While scrubbing out these nice little food cakes, I couldn't help but think of those things in life that we need filtered out of our lives. I think the seive is like our conscience, or to some extent like the Holy Spirit interceding in our lives. There are times in our lives when we allow the seive to be taken from its place, and we end up with clogged drains. However, when there is stuff that goes down in our lives and we merely catch it in our seive we can also impede the blessings that God would have for our lives. I know this was a really hard lesson for me. I felt like I had to stay in some sort of mourning period for a certain amount of time. Repentance for me seemed to convey that you not only rejected the old idea and wanted to move on and turn from it, but also that clung a little to that sin as a way of remembering what not to do next time. Pretty soon all those little leftover peices of sin are clumped together so thick and tight, that I can't see my way to Jesus' side anymore. My relationship with God becomes clogged. At some point we need to clean all the junk out of our lives. Really take it all before God and surrender it. Its then that He is free to pour out blessings on our lives, and we are open to receive them. Now obviously I am not comparing the blessings of God to dirty, greasy dishes water... but you get the general idea.
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