Spring has arrived. Wow, does it make me feel fresh and alive. Tulips and daffodils rising. Dragonflies swooning, turkey calling, wildlife singing songs that wake up God's creation. I have been cleaning each room. Removing things I no longer need and rearranging all around me. Not just furniture, but all that life holds. Today is one of those days where I simply feel alive and so grateful for God's mercy. Life just doesn't have to be complicated. Why do we make it so? Control? Why do we have to try to hold everything in our hands when all we have to do is trust the Lord? Over my life I have tried to control things. I have thought I knew best. I tried to keep everything neat and orderly. If I could keep everything in it's little place all would be perfect. But in doing so, I was simply taking away from all of God's goodness. I was missing out on His blessings because I was not fully trusting Him. Have you too been there?
I love yard sales and resale shops. Any given Saturday you can find me out and about finding little trinkets that make me smile. Some how as I was losing control I began to think all these little trinkets would somehow fill my emptiness I felt inside. It didn't. All it brought was clutter. The more stuff, the more dust. The more dust, the more I simply want to walk away. We think the more things we have the happy we will be, but that simply isn't true. I am finding that less is more.
I spent yesterday out and about with my mom. We had a wonderful day together. Lunch and laughter. Mom was acting herself once again. My love for my mom is so great. Sometimes our mothers can make us angry. They can just downright drive us crazy. Ah, but I am sure my mother felt the same about her little teenage daughter trying every way she could to find her way. Of course it brought me right back to Christ.
We get angry at Him when we don't get our way. We are trying to do everything we can to make our path. Life would be so much easier if we would only give total control over to Him. Allowing Him to guide us. I look back and now wish I would have listened to my mother's wisdom. I wish I would have followed and obeyed her, showing her respect and honor. I don't want to have those same regrets with the Lord. I want to follow Him. I want to obey Him. Trusting Him in all. For me to do so, I must die to myself and allow Him to live in me. That doesn't mean dying to dreams. It means allow His dreams to come alive in me. It doesn't mean living a life of boredom. It means in giving my life to Him I then have life abundant.
I am still that child that so wants to have her way. Praise God I am a work in progress. His work. Okay, He may have His work cut out for Him, but He is in it for life. Each day He is teaching me. Molding me. Showing me there is a better way. His way. The more complication I bring into my life the more I push Him aside. Can I really see Him through all the clutter I bring to the table? All that stuff that surrounds me? We are simply filled with things we don't need. What is taking over your life? What do you need to let go of? Is God calling you to simplify?
I think of sun tea. The pureness of it. Fresh laundry blowing in the wind. The aroma. Windows blowing lace curtains in the soft wind. The freeness. Life with Christ is pure, sweet smelling and so free. Why does it take us so very long to get it? We waste so much time fulfilling our own desires. Desires that are not of God, but our own flesh, that only leads to destruction and complications.
Swimming in a clear river. Taking a hike through untamed land. Picking fresh flowers blooming on the side of a country road. Laying in the sun on a cloudless day. No clutter. No self, only God and His glory to behold.
Spring just does something wondrous to the heart. It is a time to reflect. It is a time to think about all that clutter that takes hold of our lives. May we learn to not box it all up and set it in our corners, but give it away. Emptying our hearts and allowing God to fill them with a renewed purpose.
"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever." 1 John 2:15-17
"Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life." Proverbs 4:23
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways ackowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6
