A lesson found in the clutter.
It’s crunch time for me! In exactly one month a horde of college students will be at my house for the weekend. My youngest and next to youngest will be bringing car loads of friends for their formal here in our town. So this month I am in mad cleaning mode. Here’s the background.
Mom passed away 22 months ago. I brought all her personal belongings to my basement, and there they’ve sat this whole time.
I’m not lazy.
I’m not a hoarder.
I’ve gone to the basement approximately 20 times since then planning to clean out and throw away. But all of those subterranean excursions have lasted less than an hour. As I begin to sort, I become emotional, overcome with memories and grief. Whether it is a visual memory connected to an item, a smell of my mom’s perfume, or something totally unexplainable to me, something always ignites my emotions and I find myself unable unwilling to continue.
But this year for Lent I heard of the idea of giving up your clutter. (I know, I know, it doesn’t really fulfill the purpose of Lent, but bear with me here.) The idea proposed giving away one bag full of unused items from your home for each of the 40 days of Lent. So I’m trying it. It is not a spiritual thing,… but it is. It is deeply affecting me and teaching me.
Today as I gathered up another bag, I entered the unused bedroom in the basement that contains the leftovers of my mom’s life. Once again the aroma of her face cream, the sight of her old kitchen utensils and the stuff of her life – her address book, her phone, her purse – all threatened to undo me once again. Then I caught sight of her sifter. That precious old kitchen utensil! The one I begged her to let me help with from the time I was 5 years old and that I had seen her use hundreds of times in the past brought a smile. And I thought – I’ll take that upstairs and clean it up and use it in my kitchen. So now it sits soaking in my sink.
Somehow in that sifter I see a spiritual picture of redemption and restoration.
Redemption – the act of offsetting the bad effect of, making worthwhile, extricating from, or helping to overcome something detrimental
Restoration – the return of something to a former, original, normal, or unimpaired condition.
You see, Mom had to move out of the her home of forty-five years and into an assisted living about 5 years prior to her death due to a fall and health issues. She didn’t really want to move, so we locked the house up and kept it as it was for a year – just in case she wanted to move back you understand. 😉
After a year locked up and unoccupied, mice, raccoons, etc. had taken up residence in the 70+ year old house. Due to their chewing and nesting and such, most of the things she had left behind when she moved to Lakewood were not salvageable. Those things that held a dear memory for us kids we did try to retrieve and clean up. This sifter was one of those things for me, but it was still in the dirty, forgotten shape it had been in when I brought it from my childhood home years ago.
Anyone else would quickly toss that sifter in the trash bin destined for the dump. But I see its worth. I love it. It is dear to me.
People are like that sifter. Seemingly worthless in the eyes of some, but of great worth and greatly loved and treasured by the Father. Redeemable. He sees our usefulness. He remembers fondly the times we were close to Him and longs for that again. He longs to put us in that warm soapy water and wash us up, scrub us with a Brillo pad and make us shine. He tenderly cares for us as He cleans and restores lest that timeworn wooden knob break or that metal mesh get split open. He gently works with us in our hearts, through His Word, and through people around us who “love us back” to a restored state. You are worth restoring!
He has a plan for us, just like I have a plan for that sifter. You see, this week is my eldest’s 30th birthday, and I intend to teach some of my closest loves (my grandsons) to use “Peppymint’s” sifter as we make their dad a birthday cake. I’m planning a celebration, and that sifter is central to my plan! No, it won’t be noticed by many. And yes, it will end up sitting in my cabinet except for maybe a few days a month when I happen to bake. But it is not forgotten. It is not useless. It is crucial! It is cherished! And so are you!
If you find yourself feeling too dirty to be used, unredeemable, stored away and forgotten, not worth restoring, or old and worn out and wondering if you’re still needed by the Father, Stop! You may have lived through the years of rust and dust of sin and deception coating you over. You may have had your season being stored in the basement, but He’ll bring you out in time to make the cake for the party. He knows how to restore you and clean you up. He needs you for His purposes. We, the body, need you.
You have a purpose in God’s plan as long as you have breath in your lungs. You may be the thing that brings Him great joy as He uses you in the background. Or you may be displayed in front of His closest loves as He teaches them something wonderful. Or you may not be a sifter at all; you may be a Mont Blanc pen, or a Battenburg lace tablecloth, or a latchhook rug He carefully wove together. But you have a place in God’s plan. Never forget the story of the sifter.
“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Psalm 103:2-5
Well, there was one thing I knew without a shadow of a doubt and that was how to present The Four Spiritual Laws. That afternoon in my own room I went through The Four Spiritual Laws booklet and prayed to receive Christ. I have always felt that I was the first person that I ever led to the Lord. I was baptized to publicly profess my salvation. Was I saved? Yes! There was then, and is today, no question as to whether I am saved. I know that I know.
agonizing wound. I remember, for me, it was the “Be thankful you’ve got three healthy kids at home” reminder. I was thankful. But I missed this precious soul I would never get to meet this side of heaven. I needed to remember this child and grieve this child—even if I never held him or her physically, I held the dream of them in my heart. Reorienting my life without THIS child would take time and tears.
He brought the peace only He could give. He reminded us of His good gifts, even in the midst of our hurt and pain. He reminded us that He uses these moments of grief to draw us closer to His heart. When we find fellowship with Him in the darkest, most broken places of life, we find His love more extravagant, more remarkable, more dependable, more real, more tangible, than we ever have before.
I believe prayer is one of the simplest yet most profound and powerful parts of our life with Christ. It is beyond our understanding in many ways. Prayer is so simple that a little child can do it, yet so powerful and profound that it intimidates lawyers and doctors. It can be sporadic or a disciplined pursuit. Prayer is earthly words spoken that are then acted on by all the power of our Omnipotent Creator. It is at the same time practical and mystical, in that it is a practical action we are instructed to do by scripture, yet it has spiritual ramifications that are beyond our comprehension. Prayer sets in action the spiritual forces in the heavenly realms and is eternal. When we pray a prayer it is never lost floating around in space. Revelation 5:8 tells us “And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people” and they are there in heaven eternally before the Father.
I am Sam.
worry. Scripture instructs us not to worry. It’s a command. “Do not worry” or “Be anxious for nothing”! (Philippians 4:6) Do we take that as seriously as we do other commands like “Do not steal” or “Do not commit adultery”? We should. And what are we instructed not to worry about? Here’s a list from God’s Word: your life, your body, what you will eat or drink, what you will wear, when you will die, tomorrow, what to say and how to say it, when you are arrested, when you are brought before the authorities, or how you will defend yourself. (Matt. 6:25-34, Matt. 10:19, Mark 13:11, Luke 12:11) Worry and the accompanying anxiety that goes along with it give us health problems. So could I ask you to unload that suitcase of worry from your baggage cart and leave it behind for the rest of your life journey? It takes an intentional choice to put worry behind you.
There is a time to forget hopes, dreams, and expectations and put them behind us, too. If you can’t get over a past relationship that you had hoped would be healed, or if your grown child is not living the life you had dreamed for them, it may be time to forget this as old history and find a way to live life in the present, loving them despite anything we deem to be hangups. That may mean allowing them to live with the consequences of their sinful choices. That’s hard! But God loves them more than we do, and He is active when we are still before Him down on our knees praying on their behalf.
people and an arrogant attitude that is distasteful to the Father. As we move and act and accomplish things that are God’s purpose for our lives, we need to thank God for using us, savor the moment of usefulness, and then forget it and put it behind us. After all, it’s not us, it is God working through us to will and to work for His good pleasure doing the things He created in advance for us to do. It’s all Him! (I Thess. 2:13, Phil. 2:13, Eph. 2:10)
The thought of witnessing to others can be intimidating and scary to say the least. We can think of all kinds of excuses to not share with someone when we are not comfortable. I don’t really know what to say. I’m too shy. I’m just not comfortable doing that. I don’t want to offend them. What if they are ugly to me and reject me? What if they say no that they don’t want to be saved or they want to wait and think about it? What if I don’t say the right thing?
One Sunday morning my sister followed the Holy Sprit’s prompting. Instead of attending church, she felt very strongly that she should go and talk to our daddy about his salvation. You see, he was dying with cancer. We had been praying for him for many, many years to come to Christ. He was harsh and hard to deal with and had rejected many attempts by others to share the gospel and the invitation to come to Christ. But not that day. She was scared and anxious about what response she might get. But as she gently talked to him about his need for Jesus and about her concern for his eternity without Jesus, he said yes. Right there on the back porch swing, with her two little children beside her, she led him to Christ. My niece, who was very young at the time, said, “It’s easy Granddaddy, Mama will help you.” Just a little over three months later, my daddy stepped into eternity with Jesus.
The Process. In ancient times, refining with fire was essential to working precious metals such as gold, silver, or bronze. It’s purpose was to take raw ore out of the ground and separate the impurities (called dross) from the precious metal within the ore in order to make usable, valuable metals.
The crucible was heated to extreme temperatures to bring the metal nuggets to a fluid state. The metalworker (refiner) sat next to the molten metal stirring and skimming it to remove the dross that rose to the top or blowing the dross away with a bellows. Sometimes it took up to five days of this process with fire temperatures topping 1,000 Celsius for the refiner to get the pure metal of great value that He desired.*
Malachi 3 tells us that “he [God] will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.” We see another purpose of the fiery trials of life – to purify us. Our strength melts. Our resolve melts. Our faith melts. We suddenly find that the trials have turned us into something we are not comfortable with. This is the unknown. We are vulnerable. Will we survive this fire? What will be left of us when it is over? Not the dross. Not the impurities that keep us from being a pure, clear reflection of our Father God. They will be released and skimmed away in the melting.
Instead of walking around in fear of the next trial that may come, we are told to “not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:12-13) Our pastor often says that people are either in the middle of a fire, just coming out of a fire, or about to go into a fire. Does that strike fear in you? The second verse of Steve Green’s song speaks to this and offers us a glimpse of a mature attitude towards facing those fiery trials.
Priceless 
