For a lot of you, you have been long awaiting the arrival of spring. For the last several weeks you’ve been anticipating bright new flowers, warmer weather, and beautiful butterflies. Not this guy. For me, spring means tissues, Benadryl, and nose spray. I totally get the whole “nature comes to life” thing and I really do love all that spring entails. I just could do without all the sneezing and watery eyes that accompany it. Also with the arrival of spring comes this crazy idea of cleaning your entire home, better known as spring cleaning.

Spring cleaning is an opportunity to not only focus on getting your home in order, but it’s also a great time to examine your spiritual life to see what needs to be cleaned up. When we begin to spring clean, there isn’t a job too messy or too large for my wife. She simply loves to clean (weird I know) and seems to enjoy rolling up her sleeves, cranking up the music, and getting to work. Jesus is the same way and so much more. Your life is never too messy for Jesus to clean up. You can never out sin God’s grace. I don’t care how bad a mess you’ve made of your life, Jesus specializes in taking messes and turning them into masterpieces. So as you and your family begin to spring clean over the next few weeks, I encourage you to not only focus on your physical home, but take a look at your spiritual life to see what needs to be taken care of in order for you to enjoy all that God has in store for you in the days to come.

One of the first things we focus on when spring cleaning is getting rid of all the clutter that magically accumulated over the last several months. It’s amazing how much junk one family can accumulate in a short period of time. I’m ashamed to even say how many trash bags full of stuff we load up every spring when we take the time to go through everything. Just as Renea and I look to get rid of a lot of the clutter that has accumulated over the last several months, we need to understand that we as Christians need to do the same in our own lives. We need to get rid of all the distractions in our life that are keeping us from focusing on God and making Him our number one priority. What thing(s) in your life are cluttering up your relationship with God?

Once we conquer the decluttering, we turn our energy to the cleaning phase. I’m not sure about your house but our house has this magical ability to grow dirt and dust in places you can only imagine. As we began to clean, dust, and disinfect, I couldn’t help but think of all the different things we must continuously clean up in our own lives if we’re to grow in our relationship with the Lord. If we’re not careful, we’ll allow anger, greed, or bitterness to grow in our heart and if not dealt with appropriately, it will make a mess of our spiritual life. When is the last time you really examined your heart to see what could be holding you back spiritually? David asked the Lord several times in Psalms to search him to see if there was anything hindering his walk with Christ. If David, the man after God’s own heart, prayed this prayer, how often should we do so?

After A LOT of cleaning, dusting, and disinfecting, we can finally transition to the last phase of reorganizing everything. Reorganizing gives us a chance to neatly store away things we do not currently need and make our closets and storage more accessible and easier to get to. Just as reorganization gives us the ability to easily focus on the most important items in our home, we must also do some rearranging and reorganizing in our spiritual lives if we truly want to grow closer to the Lord. For some of you, maybe it’s time to rearrange some dreams or priorities in your life that have taken precedence over your relationship with Christ. What would happen if you were to get rid of your own agenda and asked God to reveal His plans for your life? Perhaps there are some things in your life that you’re going to have to part ways with if you’re to experience all that God has in store for you. It will cost you to follow Jesus. In fact, following Jesus always leads to a cross where our dreams are crucified. What dreams/plans of your own are you holding on to?

I wish you all well in your spring cleaning endeavors and make sure you take the time to smell the flowers and enjoy all of God’s beautiful creation the spring season!

Praying for you always,

Dustin