Taking Out the Trash

We’re updating a few things in our new home in St Augustine, Florida. Recently, my husband, who is doing most of the work, cut into the drywall that surrounds the kitchen island we’re remodeling.

Look at what we discovered behind those walls!

No wonder roaches love to live inside walls. My first thought after my mouth dropped and my eyes popped was, how lazy can people be? Very lazy!

Trash doesn’t belong inside the walls of your home. Or does it?

We have another home. Our bodies. It’s a physical and spiritual body. And in our sometimes laziness or neglect, trash gets stored in that home too. I’m reluctant to even mention the word “food” at the start of a New Year. I don’t make diet resolutions or any resolutions. Rather, I attempt to set goals and objectives. One of those goals this year is less sugar. Sugar wreaks havoc on your immune system. And my immune system with having lupus is chaotic enough.

Our bodies also depend upon exercise. This is where I, too often, fall short in my prioritizing. It’s also one of the main reasons we moved to Florida. A place conducive to year-round outdoor activity without being cold. I no longer have any excuse for not moving this body!

But the area I want to stress most relates to our spiritual home. It’s easy to hide trash inside our spiritual body. We bury it deep within the walls of our life so no one will see. Sometimes, not even us. God doesn’t want it there! Did you notice how much dust accumulated on all that trash? That’s what happens to us when we let things remain in our lives that need addressing. They only get worse.

Maybe it’s time this year for tearing down some walls and taking out the trash? Afraid of what you might find? Remember, God sees all aspects of our lives. He wants to rid us of the things that hurt and hinder us and others. Especially when they distance us from him.

There’s peace in being authentic before God. Let the following verses encourage you as you take an honest look behind the walls of your life to see what needs to go in 2025.

Psalm 145:14 “The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.”

Psalm 145:18 “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.”

Ephesians 4:20-24 “That, however, is not the way of life you learned ²¹ when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. ²² You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”