You know what gets done to a deck when one is pregnant and tired through the fall and adjusting to being a working mom in the spring? ... A whole lot of nothing gets done.
But even though I've done nothing to the deck this past year, when I looked out the door, something had happened to it anyway. Without me doing a single thing, the deck was covered in leaves and sticks and acorns. Covered.
And you know what was under those leaves and sticks and acorns? More rotting leaves. And under them? Mold growing, and rot beginning. Ew.
I had excuses for not working on the deck ... Excuses so good, in fact, I believe you could even call them real reasons! ....but nature didn't care about my reasons, it simply took advantage of my doing nothing.
Isn't that how our spiritual selves are too? Sometimes we do nothing. Sometimes we even have really great excuses for doing nothing! ...but Satan doesn't care about our reasons. He simply takes advantage of our doing nothing.
Though I'm doing nothing wrong, if I'm not actively doing something right ... Leaves fall. What empty spaces we leave - however small - Satan quickly fills.
And suddenly we are growing mold. And rotting. Ew.
Good news is, just like I (with a while lot of help from my Hubby) can fix the deck, we (with a whole lot of help from our God and Christian family) can fix our spiritual selves.
1) Cleaning. Today I swept the deck, we used a chemical cleaner, and Rob power washed. Spiritually, sometimes we need to celan house!
2) Replacing. Some of the deck boards were rotted out and Rob had to cut out the rotted parts .... But he didnt just leave the holes! He placed in new boards. Sometimes, we need to mend things with others and within ourselves to get where we want to be spiritually. We can't leave holes when we clean the old/bad things out ... We need to fill our hearts and lives with new, Godly things.
3) Preventing. For us, this means staining the deck to help protect it ... And buying a canopy to place over part of it (yay!). Spiritually, it means studying Gods word, meditating on Him, and surrounding ourselves with good.
The thing about fixing decks is its quite doable, but it does take a little elbow grease and whole lot of consistency. When you live in the woods, leaves are a constant ... And if I want the deck to stay nice, I will have to constantly deal with them.
And aren't our spiritual selves the same way? We need to put the effort in - and stay consistent - because Satan will always come around again ... And we need to consistently resist him.
