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I recently bought a few new towels for our upstairs bath, (and no, it isn't finished yet, so no, no new pictures - you'll be the first to know!) and I washed and dried them yesterday. You know how it is when you dry new towels; the lint trap is full of fluffy lint, and I for one wonder how much is left on the towels! But they come out so soft and fluffy and I enjoy using them, and I use them for several months, and then one day, they don't seem so fluffy anymore. They may even seem a little dingy, especially if they are white, no matter how much bleach or color-free bleach I use. There is less and less lint in the lint trap, and eventually, they may join the ranks of our rag collection.
Then there are the dust bunnies; you know, that dust that collects under furniture and in closets and floats around the room, especially when you have drop-in guests and haven't had time to vacuum or dust mop. We have hardwood floors in some of our rooms, and the dust bunnies are really dog hair tumbleweeds that blow around the room in willy-nilly fashion, and it is time for me to tackle them and brush the dog!
Taking care of these little details is an easy task - just clean out the lint trap and sweep the floor! But what about the stuff that floats around in your heart and mind? You know, the negative thoughts, the ones we do not want to admit we have. The ones we hope no one will ever know we are thinking and the ones we hope we do not say out loud, but sometimes we slip and out they come! We all have them, no matter how nice we are. We may seem nice and soft on the outside, but inside we are full of stuff that clouds our thinking. Things like "I am not worthy of _______" or "She thinks she is so much better than me" or, well, you get the idea. They cloud our thinking because they are LIES!
We all have negative and maybe destructive thoughts, and they usually hurt us the most. But we do not have to live with these lies. The Word tells us that
"we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5b). Just ahead of these words we find that
"For we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds." (verse 3,4) And in Philippians 4:8, Paul urges us,
"...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." You may wonder how you will be able to change your thoughts; in fact, I know by experience it is very, very hard. But there is a way, and in Philippians 4:13 we find it...
"I can do everything through Him who gives me strength" Sisters, we can not do it ourselves, no way, no how. But we can ask "Him who gives me strength" to help us. We can get on our knees and ask Him, and let me assure you,
He hears our prayers and He will answer!
I have barely touched on what God can do to help us clean out our thoughts and our hearts. But trust me, no, trust Him, that He is able to do it. He can clean out the lint and the dust bunnies of your heart and your mind and sweep them clean, and if more lint and dust bunnies appear, He will be faithful to sweep again! My favorite Bible verse is Philippians 1:6, and I have quoted it many times;
"...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." You can believe that I hang on to this one, and I trust Him at His Word.
In the meantime, I have floors to sweep, a dog to brush, and laundry to fold!
