Dear Ones,
I am sending this devotional out tonight rather than in the morning since we plan to start our trip to Kansas about 3 a.m. Would appreciate prayers for safe travels and arriving in time to go with Kurt and Brenda to K State for Lily’s soccer game at 6:30.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
One morning I felt the Lord speak to me about my heart. The day before I had helped the women at the church clean the cupboards, closets, and sanctuary. A friend and I worked together and cleaned some cupboards in the kitchen first, getting rid of some things that were no longer useful. Then she and I and another gal cleaned the pews, scrubbed them down and worked on removing the many dark marks. When I was praying the next day, I felt like the Lord was saying that He desired to do a deep cleaning job in my heart.

A simple song came to my mind that I have quoted before; “Change my heart, O Lord, make it ever true; change my heart O Lord, may I be like you. You are the potter, I am the clay; mold me and make me, this is what I pray.” I agreed with the Lord that there are deep things buried in my life that I might not even be consciously aware of, but that need to go. Just like those things in the drawers that were no longer useful and need to be discarded. I asked Him to reveal those things. God is using a book I am presently reading to reveal to me deep things from my childhood that I believed about myself but were not true. Those thoughts need to be let go, discarded and replaced by words of truth.

Some things might take some deep-down scrubbing like those pews that have been used for years. They required a scrubby and lots of elbow grease! There were times I almost gave up on dark marks that were resistant, but I came back to them after dealing with lesser ones. God knows what we are ready for and will bring to light what has been hidden from us when we are ripe and ready. Some things are painful at the time, but then also exciting as we deal with them and have new eyes to see the truth that sets free. God often puts people in our lives to help us see and process what He is doing, and that is also a gift from Him. He is making us into new creations, and I want to keep changing and growing until my last breath.

Challenge for today: Open your heart to dealing with the hidden things as you claim II Cor. 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed asway and behold, the new has come.”
Blessings on tonight and on your day tomorrow and prayers and love, Judy