PURGE. God gave me this first key word to focus my new year; but it is not the end. Having boxes piled high downstairs, knowing a pile of papers has buried in it some time-sensitive priorities, navigating carefully in the caverns of our garage...this is not how I want to live. These unfinished areas of our home keep me from being able to think well, move forward and build on important values, such as making bread with my 3 year old. I want to purge from my life all that isn’t useful, beautiful, purposeful, meaningful and godly. Once I finish going through our house to purge things from closets and move items into their proper rooms, I want go beyond our household items to explore what I can purge of the unnecessary in my life, globally.
What wasteful, non-Spirit led activities do I give myself freedom I engage in? Surely there are things in my “freedom” that the enemy uses subtly over time to keep me from being more effective in God’s Kingdom. Of course, he doesn’t make these choices for me. I am seeing areas in my life where I’ve chosen foolishness instead of God’s higher and harder path of wisdom and intentionality. For example, what foods do I regularly indulge in that will eventually harm my health and longevity to love and serve Him? I don’t want to be enslaved to anything. I want only to be a bondservant of Christ for the long haul. The following verses refer to the phrase “a little,” which seem to show that little decisions, little choices without wisdom, pile up toward a downward trajectory to poverty.
Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.
Without having any chief,
officer, or ruler,
she prepares her bread in summer
and gathers her food in harvest.
How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man.
Proverbs 6:4-11 ESV
My husband has been in the Proverbs lately and it has enriched our family as he shares understanding given to him from the Spirit.
The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down. (Proverbs 14:1 ESV)
This passage propelled him to value bringing order into his office and together in just one day, we sorted through all his boxes that had been left unpacked for over a year since we moved! Today, there is only one drawer to sort through and there are no more boxes on the floor! Almost everything is finally in its proper, ideal location. What a place to want to go work in! Yay! Moving forward, building into eternal things, will be so much easier now that the clutter is gone!
This verse teaches me that how I keep my house is ultimately on me. It begs me to ask the question: Where in my house have I built well and where have I torn it down? The final buck of responsibility rests on my shoulders.
Clearing the boxes in another area of our house moved me toward being able to finally lead our daughter and her friends to send hope to Africa by making pillowcase dresses through littledressesforafrica.org. Last night, our 3 year old and I made bread for the first time in his life. We made flour from whole grains and proceeded to make 6 batch dough with our Bosch. I always put off making bread from wheat berries (something I value) when my life is in disorder--the last time I made it was years ago! I’ve never heard him use the word awesome before, but throughout the process of making the 4 loaves, pizza crust and a casserole dish of breakfast cinnamon rolls for the morning, he kept shouting, “This is awesome!!!” Watching his delight as we ran our hands through the bucket of grains, over an over, warmed my heart to finally do this with him. How cool to watch him marvel as he interacted with a bucket full of wheat berries for the first time in his life!
BUILD. For me, this is closer to the end of why to purge. I want to build blessing into the lives of others and ultimately to be a blessing to God Himself as I seek to do His will. I want to avoid becoming ineffective in taking the gospel to the nations because I made bad life steweardship choices.Brother Lawrence concluded so succinctly in Practicing His Presence (ISBN: 0-940232-01-4), p.45, “I … have resolved to make the love of God the end of all my actions.” I look forward to having every area of my life positioned to live with full intentionality so that I can engage actively in all that God has purposed for me, each day. Jean Fleming’s amazing book, Pursue the Intentional Life (ISBN: 1612910971) captures this theme well. She begins in the first chapter by describing how a 70 year old woman who lives with intentionality does not happen overnight. This is a must have book! Wisdom choices start in your teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and so forth…
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10 ESV)
What a beautiful thing that God has placed each of us into a corner of the world with a sphere of influence. What privilege to be able to make decisions for good and move things around in our domains so as to result in greater joy for others and ourselves...to ultimately bring God glory as we seek to love Him and people with the one life He has given us! The view that my day is filled with the mundane is pushed out when I see that I am writing history in real time. I get to engage in God’s will at this moment. God wants more fully to transform every area of my life to reflect the Kingdom of His Son’s rule.
Ok, Lord! Show me the next step on this path!
(What is God calling you to do this new year?)