I’ve noticed an on-going trend in my cleaning techniques as of recent. My room probably should remain clean… but, for some reason it has a little trouble maintaining that standard. I have a routine, it proves to be ineffective, but it’s a routine nonetheless. The first step is to make the bed, followed by folding clothes, putting away shoes, cleaning off my desk, etc. And I always, always leave the massive amount of clothes to be hung up for last. First of all locating enough hangers for each article of clothing is a feat in itself, but secondly trying to make everything fit back in the closet… it stresses me out. So, often I tell myself, “I’ll just hang those up later…” and a week later, my room is messy again because I have failed to finish what I had started in the first place.

Bear with me for a second, this isn’t really about clothes.

I think that a lot of us try to clean out our lives in a very similar fashion to how we clean our rooms; we tackle the simple issues first, leaving the complicated and often stubborn issues for last. As girls and women living for God, we want to keep our hearts, minds, actions as clean as possible. And since we’re human, we can’t help but make mistakes every now and then.

There is a difference however, between keeping your life in good form for God and making that initial commitment to live in good form. Once we are undoubtedly and indisputably sold out to God, we have to start dropping those items that kept us from this level before, something has to change.

So, we start getting rid of the little things first. We change the way we talk, that’s easy. We change the way we present ourselves, that’s easy. We change our prayer lives, our worship, our goals, our expectations. Each of these incredibly crucial in our walk with God… but, we look at a separate set of ‘items’ and tell ourselves we can wait to get rid of those…

This includes friends, ‘they aren’t as easy to come by’. Music, ‘we don’t really listen to the words anyways’. Places that we go, things that we watch, articles that we read. We tell ourselves “I’ll get rid of these things in time, but not today”… and once we do this, we come back a week later and notice everything we initially gave up has resurfaced, because I have failed to finish what I had started in the first place.

I think it’s about time we gain a little ambition. We need to tackle each and every discrepancy at once. We ought to make a commitment and hold strong to it. Once we even mumble the words, “I’m sold out”, we ought to be prepared to actually BE sold out. Be sold out in your mind, be sold out in your actions, in your speech, in your worship, in your goals, and be sold out in all ‘things’.

Don’t let discouragement be the determining factor in what will be a stable asset in your life, but rather let God overcome that discouragement and give you a firmer foundation.

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye being rooted and grounded in love. May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, and that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God..” Ephesians 3:17-19.

We need to be rooted in all things, and we need to be encouraged to finish what we’ve begun. We are starting something big with our commitments to God, and He intends for us to follow through with what we’ve started.

Let’s get grounded.

*If you are interested in sharing your testimonials on witnessing this month, we would love to hear how God is using you. E-mail us at mail@apostolicgirl.com