Refreshing Our Senses



One of the posts on the former Large on Less blog was about decorating our homes for Spring on the "cheep".  Yes, c-h-e-e-p, it was about using nests, feathers, eggs, that sort of thing.  Anyway, towards the end of post, I mentioned something about our senses awakening from their Winter slumber.  When what should flash across my mind but a "random?" thought: "Do your spiritual senses need an awakening?"  Ouch!  Yes, I think that my spiritual senses do indeed need an awakening.  "Have you burrowed way down deep in an effort to hide from the bitter cold and harshness of the Winter season?"  "Have you buried yourself under layer after layer of apathy to ward off the pain that caring about someone/something can cause?"  So many unbidden thoughts!  Go away!  I want to think carefree happy thoughts.  I want to think about white bunny rabbits hippity hopping down sunshiny paths lined with pastel colored tulips.  I want to concentrate on smelling the fragrance from those flowers and saturating the warmth from the springtime sun.  Whoops!  How can I smell the fragrance of the Rose of Sharon or feel the Son's warmth if I have buried myself in apathy? 

It's quite a revelation to realize that while I have been watching the snow and ice melt away outside my window, God has been longing to melt away the coldness of my heart.  Not only that, but He intends to pour out His Spirit on me in even greater measure than the rain that has been falling outside the past few days.  I can't help but sense that my Heavenly Father wants to muddy up the roads in my heart with the Holy Spirit.  Those familiar trails that my thoughts tend to travel are going to become unusable when the rain of the Spirit saturates the soil of my heart.  Just like the wet and muddy roads we are driving over outside right now. As we are having to use different routes to get down the valley on the ranch, my thoughts will have to take a different route too.  They are going to have to learn to travel the road that God planned for me to send them on all along. 

Change, new schedules, new plans, new routines, these have, in the past, been unpleasant things to me.  I adore new clothes, new games, new things, but when it comes to routines and plans....well, let me put it this way: I could be perfectly content working on an assembly line.  Doing the same thing over and over and over doesn't bother me in the least.  As a matter of fact, I like it that way.  There is immense security for me in sameness of order.  When I do any task, I always follow a set manner, in a set way, and use the same tool.  I am one of those people who don't change soap or cosmetics until the company no longer manufactures it.  Maybe this is why I'm usually considered boring.  Hmmm, that's another thought for another day.

My desire for sameness hasn't ever been a problem in my walk with the Lord.  God Himself never changes. He is God and He changes not.(Malachi 3:6) Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, forever. (Hebrews 13:8)  However, He also says He is doing a new thing---that's change. (Isaiah 43:19)I want to be changed.  I don't wonder why these thoughts come passing through my mind.  After all, I prayed and asked God to change me, to make me like Him, to teach me His ways.  How else will this be accomplished if I don't change?  It's just that it's so new.  It's unfamiliar.  I haven't done this like this before...ever.  Being grouchy, unkind, rigid, these are all familiar habits.  I've never liked them, but even the arch enemies I have spent my life fighting can seem comforting when they are the only thing left that is familiar.  It's a  perverted, sick delusion the enemy deceives us with. 

When my thoughts aren't matching God's thoughts, mine need to become like His. To do this, I must find out what His are.  How?  By going to the Bible, His Word, and searching them out.  What will the coming days find me doing?  Reading the Word of God and finding out His thoughts.  I will be writing those thoughts down and repeating them to myself over and over and over until they replace any other thoughts that are there.  I will be learning a new route.  The senses of my heart are being awakened.  The Rose of Sharon, Jesus, is breaking through the winter snows of my heart and the warmth of God's love is melting through the icy hardness.  A new season is coming.  It's a season of change.  This is the year that I will be forever changed.  Even though there may be hard times and storms, the anticipation of God's new thing is high.  Refreshing my senses.  It's going to be a good thing from a good God.

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