Recently our area was hit by Hurricane Zeta. I’m neighbors with both Erin and Emily, so you likely remember that our neighborhood was without power for 93 hours.
My family did not have a generator until more than 48 hours into the outage, so we had stuffed each freezer full of ice hoping it would be enough. We were also out of town for some of that time and so we could not run the generator while we weren’t at home.
In the end, everything in our kitchen refrigerator was lost. When we returned from our trip on Monday, I knew that I was going to have to clean the fridge out. I also knew, that it hadn’t been done in over a year. It was going to take a lot of elbow grease.
As I emptied jars of pickles (some we had made and others had been gifted to us), jellies, sour cream that had gotten warm, and any other perishable item that was in the fridge, I was worried about having to replace it all.
Then I had a thought; we had been holding on to some of the condiments in the fridge for a while. I hate to admit it, but some had been there for years, so surely it was time to throw them out anyway.
Don’t we tend to do that in life? We hold on to old, familiar things, even if they are way past their prime. They have served their purpose, yet we will not let go of them. Until God intervenes, that is. God knows that it is hard for us humans to let go of things, even when they are not the best for us. Yet He longs to get the spoiled fruits out of your life so that he can fill it with new, better tasting ones.
It was very painful to throw all of that food away to make room for the new, unspoiled replacements; yet, when it was done there was relief that things were new and we knew that they would not harm us.
The next time you feel a pulling on your heart to let go of something you have been hanging onto for way too long, let God rid you of it so He can fill you again with newness. It might mean forgiving an offense or asking for forgiveness of another. It might be trading a new car for an older one so that you can tithe more. It might even be cleaning out your fridge because the darkness spoiled the contents. Now that there is light, things are made new.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!” ~2 Corinthians 5:17 (CSB)
“…and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.” ~ Ephesians 4:24 (CSB)
~Lacie
Iron Porch 