PRE-BLOG NOTE: Hey, I’m going to be leading worship and doing some original songs on the Choose Conference Facebook page WEDNESDAY NIGHT, June 3rd, at 7:30pm Central Time. Join me if you’d like!
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My parents took the plunge a couple weeks ago. They moved out of California where they had been living for over 35 years and moved to Nashville. (In the middle of a global pandemic, and now, mass riots. Wow.) Needless to say, it's been exciting and an interesting roller coaster with ups and downs. If you've ever done a big move like this you understand the perils of all the things that are out of your control. It's quite an undertaking, and frankly, it takes courage to let go.
Something struck me though as my mom began to shoot texts with pictures of the old house emptying out. It brought waves of emotion I wasn't expecting. I haven't lived in that house for over 15 years, but there's still a lot of memories there. As the texts and pictures came through, this truth hit me:
You have to let go of something old in order to take hold of something new.
You can't take all the old furniture with you and have room for the new stuff. There's not enough room. Imagine your hands are full and you are desperately trying to grab onto something valuable that someone is trying to give to you. Every time you open your hands to receive, stuff falls out and you drop the very thing you're reaching for. For many of us, our hands are full. We long for something new, but we just can't part with the old.
Perhaps you're holding on to an old pattern, mindset, or broken way of doing things. Maybe you’re holding on to something you were taught that was not right or even righteous. (Sometimes we don’t realize those kinds of hand-me-downs.) God wants to do a new thing.
It's not that we don't honor what our pasts have provided for us. Certainly we don't have to toss everything and pretend like none of it matters. Much of our past, both failures and successes have shaped us. Our pasts tell the story of what we've done, where we've been, and how we've grown.
I wonder how many times we miss what God wants to do ahead of us because we're so attached to what's behind us.
If you want newness in your spirit and your relationship with God, you've got to create space; to dis-possess something in order to possess something new. Will you make room? Will you relinquish what's good for something better and new? Perhaps there's an even greater blessing if you'll prepare your heart by letting Him clear out what isn't good for you.
Imagine spiritual breathing room. New furniture. New smells. New paths to walk. New power tools. New ingredients in your kitchen or recipes. What is true in the physical often has a spiritual parallel.
I bet the Lord wants to do something new in and through you today too. I wonder if Covid and chaos might even be the tipping point to launch you into a new direction.
You can cling to what you know and understand, or you can take the plunge, trust, and clear out what doesn't empower you anymore. The choice is up to you.
I hope you'll take a few minutes to inventory what God might be challenging you to let go of. Hop in the van. God has places He wants to take you that you've never experienced before.
The adventure awaits.
Joyfully,
Rachel B.