Cleaning Out The Junk

Psalm 25:4-5
Show me Your ways, O Lord. Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation. On you I will wait all the day.

Vicki and I spent the better part of the weekend emptying out drawers and cabinets in our kitchen. We having some renovation done on our house so it was time to prepare for the make over. You know when you start emptying out thirty three years of "Stuff"....you learn a lot about yourself. It was almost like taking a trip back in time. Old pictures.....Coffee cups and glasses that hadn't been used in a while. Receipts and letters. Pictures of family and friends. Drawer after drawer was opened and emptied. We kept some things, others were thrown away or placed in a pile to be taken to the thrift store.

If your trying to move ahead in your own recovery, you've got to do a similar work. It's called a "Moral inventory". It's writing down the good and the bad of your personal  history. Step #4 says that we are to "Make a searching and fearless moral inventory." Truth be known, you can't move forward in life until you've dealt with past. Sometimes we refuse to deal with our past and our life becomes like the junk drawers we had to empty out yesterday. Life becomes full and the bad we've done begins to define how we see ourselves. Our self worth is wrapped up in the bad we've had done. Not a good way to follow if we truly want to be free.

The verse from Psalm 25 opens with a request..."Show me Your ways, O Lord."
How can we see the way's of God? How will He show us? Such will take place as you become a part of a community of like minded people. People who love Jesus and are about the business of moving forward in life. You'll see the hand of God in the individual lives as they demonstrate what this new life looks like. You'll discover God's ways when you begin to read His book. If you start in the Gospels, Matthew - Mark - Luke - John, you'll see Jesus interacting with a group of men who left everything to follow Him. In some ways, we become like those twelve disciples who left family, friends, and businesses to go off on an adventure. They would never be the same. To be shown the ways of the Lord means that we are given a glimpse of His character...His nature. The patience and gentleness of God. 

Next part of Psalm 25 ask that God teach us His paths. 
A path is a direction that has been marked out by repeated traveling over and over and over.
A certain direction is taken by numerous people over and over till the ground has been hardened by their steps. The grass is beat down, and weeds are pushed to the side by the repeated footsteps. We are following a direction that God set the boundaries for. Jesus' call to His disciples was to "Follow Me".  Life...real life....recovery life is all about learning to follow and not giving into to our old nature of wanting to control everything. It's about doing the work, or things necessary to give us a good foundation. Like those junk drawers Vicki and I tackled this weekend, life is about discarding the worthless, keeping the good, and remembering what has taken place over the years. Being thankful for where you are today....thankful that you not where you could be...and thankful for the opportunity to change.

It's a new day.....
It's Monday....
You've been given a gift.
What are you going to do with it?
Spend it wisely?
Or waste it on the past?
It's time to be about the business of living.

God on you...
mb