Spring Cleaning

I Kings 19:3-18

There is something about spring that causes many of us to look inside our homes and decide we need to clean out the closets, the drawers, the garage, and yes, even the refrigerator. Every spring, surprisingly I find myself wiping out my window seals of dead bugs! I can only guess how they got in for I am a pretty good house keeper and it concerns me that they entered while I was unaware. Though the windows had been shut up for months I realized they entered through less obvious places. It was in an all-out invasion…done in the darkness through little cracks hardly visible to the eye. That’s the way bugs are…sneaky.


What about the “bugs” that have gotten into our lives? You know the ones over the dark cold months of despair… Perhaps they entered as just an egg of a thought but now have hatched and blossomed into an unfounded fear or deep root of bitterness. Sometimes they enter after a great victory in your life! Bugs don’t have a set way of entering! They just know how to find the cracks! Elijah knew about this “bug.” He had just had a great revival where all the prophets of Baal had failed miserably and God had shown up to do immeasurably more than even Elijah had hoped or imagined. Then we read, “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.” (I Kings 19:3)


Bugs! They know where to get us! They know our weakness and hit at the very place we have left opened…unguarded by the covering of God’s protection. Once they start, unless we catch them early, they will fill up all the holes until we are full of every kind of “bug” imaginable. All we can see are the bugs…and our friends will point out that we have a right to be upset with all these bugs!!! “Where is God???” they ask. We listen to the world and begin to ask ourselves the same thing…”Where is God? I need Him now more than ever…where is He?”


If you read our scripture for today, you will find that God was in the quietness…and He had been there all along. St. Augustine once said, “My soul is too cramped for you to enter it [God].” He recognized that his life was jam-packed full of “bugs” and there was no way God could do anything until he had some major spring cleaning! Elijah, in the midst of his despair realized he had to clean out some thoughts before he could hear God. When he did, he heard God’s voice telling him the truth of the situation.


We must be on alert at all times for the bugs that want to invade our lives. Bugs are liars! God has the truth of our situation and has promised His power to be over-comers. 2nd Peter 1: 3 says, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” Our responsibility is to call upon this power! Confess all the “bugs” in your life…the despair, the worldliness, the secret sins, the pride, the anger…you get the picture…wipe all of those from your personal window seals…then allow His still small voice to come in and give you victory. He promised it…both to Elijah and to Peter…so why not you?


Spring cleaning doesn’t just happen…we must be intentional and it is hard work. It takes time and you might be a little sore when it is done, but when you look over the finished product…there is a sense of freshness! You then realize it was worth it! Now, where did I put that dust rag?????