When Purging meets Jesus

We have all been there, maybe it’s something you are overjoyed in doing. Others dread it, but know it’s necessary. 
The great purge. We see it with the approach of the new year, or the good ol’ “Spring Cleaning” events that all households endure. We vow to make it all sparkle and make room for what’s necessary. Decluttering what’s been collecting dust, motivation to start new again. That feeling of joy we get when the task is complete and an even bigger pat on the back of our old becoming someone else’s new. 
Somehow it’s just become a normal thing. We never question the clutter until it becomes oppressive. We keep collecting, purchasing, receiving, and adding until we realize we once again need to make room for the new. 

So what does this all have to do with our spiritual health? What if I said to you, that the focus we put in the physical things of this world, is a priority we need to make of the things dwelling in ourselves.

​Mark 2:22, NIV: "And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined.
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The wine will burst the skins...the things we refuse to be rid of, to purge, that are not of God will burst the spirit. Has it set in yet?
Let me ask you with some examples. The relationship that ended suddenly and painfully, the words left unspoken. The feeling of being wronged that you refuse to address. The person or situation that you can’t think of without pain. The identity you refuse to pick up from fear. The ideology you hold onto that is nowhere to be found in scripture, but it continues because “that’s just how it is.”
Are we there yet? Have I stirred something within you? This is not a space where I bring judgment. This is a space I ask you to partner with God. To purge what breaks His heart. 
To shake the rotten fruit and dead things that are weighing down the new wine skin given when you became His. 
What’s collecting dust in your spirit that you refuse to release? Is there something you stored and collected an abundance of to avoid the calling set upon you? What thoughts have become so oppressive that it feels like there is too much weight to hold it all?
Now let’s just address this very last thing, the most important. Do you trust the garbage man, the people at Goodwill, and the friend who you passed the clutter more easily than God? Why not release the old wine to the one who designed you? You realize this new wine is the purest most delicious thing you will ever consume. 
Why not let that anthem be “Fill me up Lord, overflow this wine skin with the well that is you!It’s time to purge. To know Jesus will take that pain no matter how long you have let it fester or how deep you think you’ve buried it. To trust God with the things you are gripping so tight it’s beginning to die. 
To let Him renew your mind and unlock chains. To restore a hope that you thought lost. To get to a place where even if pieces of the puzzle are missing,  you know that HE stands beside you, and that is enough. Start labeling those spiritual storage bins, and let God clean them out. 

~Your sister dancing in the vineyards with arms wide open. 

Denise Jolly
*This post was originally created for  Saturated Women of Columbia