WHAT TO KEEP & WHAT TO THROW AWAY: The Emotional/Spiritual House Cleaning

. . . but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14).

And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as he is pure (I John 3:3).

This kind of housekeeping needs to be done on a regular basis just like ordinary housekeeping--like once a week.  It can be the most difficult housekeeping one will ever do.

I had some business that took me to Spirit Lake, Iowa.  On the return trip I made a short excursion around to where my grandfather's cottage had been located on west lake Okoboji.  The cottage is gone now, being replaced by a much larger house.  A flood of memories came back to me as I looked out over the lake; they were all good except for one.  One of my memories of this lake is actually a dream.  In the months following the deaths of my dad, my brother and my uncle, their deaths were within a few days of each other, I began to have a recurring dream of swimming out towards the middle of the lake.  I was too far out to swim back, but too far away from the far shore to swim there either.  I was drowning!  I had that dream several times--enough times so that I talked to my seminary psychology professor friend about it.  He assured me that this is a normal grief experience and went on to add: "Though we cannot get back to the familiar, happy and safe times of yesterday, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will safely take us to the far shore of Heaven."  I haven't had that dream in a couple of years, but seeing the lake made me think of it.

The emotional and spiritual housecleaning that must be done is not easy; it might be that one will need the help of a counselor.  However, the hope one has in Christ can help him/her to understand the relative value of all the stuff in the psychological storeroom.  Our hope helps us to sort out the junk that we once treasured and let it go.  It is not wrong to visit the past on occasion, but it is wrong to live there.  Focus on the future because our best days are yet ahead!

Grace&Peace;
Tom