Lately I have been struggling with feeling sort of "blah". Kind of like this sponge. Dry and very useless. Even trying to scrub the sink with a dried up sponge will not get me very far. It is only when that sponge contains water does it take on any useful characteristics. Although even the makeup of the water makes a difference.
So consider this. If you take a sponge and dip it into a bucket of ink and then start to clean with it - wow - you are in for a big mess. Or if the water you are using perhaps has sat for a long time it may make your sponge smelly. It is only when the water is pure and clean that it makes the sponge useful for its intended purpose.
John 7:38
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
Scripture gives us instruction that tells us that living water will flow from the person who believes in Jesus Christ. This is the only way that our lives can be totally full and able to be used. How then do we become dry and useless? I know for me it comes when my attitudes are not what they need to be. When I am struggling with an attitude of complaint, or criticism or coveteousness then I am in danger of not being filled with the living water. Not that I have lost the source - it is that I am not choosing attitudes that would allow the water to flow through me and out to others.
It is a constant struggle for me to deal with the attitudes that have become so ingrained in me. I have found over the past few years that my heart has struggled with having an idolatrous attitude. And the idolatry is that of pride. I have put myself above others and often times above my relationship with God. This prideful attitude is what causes me to feel dry and lifeless. It is only as I disconnect from the brackish water of pride and connect into the living water of humility that I can experience the life giving flow.
I feel like there needs to be a cleansing in my heart. Father, I am praying that you will take this dry heart and remove from me those attitudes that keep me from being connected to your lifegiving water. I pray that my life would be renewed with the attitudes of thankfulness and love. Take from me any of the past that also tends to plague me. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.
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1 comment:
Thank you for sharing your prayer, Carol. i'm waiting on GOD at this period of my life and some days, i feel like a damp sponge on a shelf...waiting is not my forte, as i have a tendency to just get up and do IT...whatever that "it" may be.
And that's a form of pride, thinking i can do IT without GOD's wise direction. So i continue to wait for Him to tell me/show me clearly the WHAT NEXT.
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