PRIORITIZING MY FATHER’S HOUSE: THERE IS A TIME FOR KEEPING & THROWING AWAY (Wednesday)

Jul 6, 2022
2 min read

Ecclesiastes 3:1, 5-6, 15

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away.

Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.

When I search for God, I must realize God Himself initiated the action. God calls me to Himself, so I can learn to embrace Him. The closer I get to God, the more I learn about what He wants to keep and what He wants to throw away.

Just like when my mother asked me to clean up my toys, —giving away the ones I didn’t play with anymore—God wants to clean up my life. There’s one difference, though. He has already told me in His Word the things will be bad for me, and He lets me choose what I want to keep.

If I decide to keep things that will be bad for me—including sinful habits of anger and anxiety, selfishness and the like—I can be assured that I will need to re-take the test. The things that have already been will come around again—I can be assured of that. If I fill my life with things that make me anxious, I will live a life of fear and anxiety. If I fill my life with relationships that make me bitter and angry, you can believe that I’ll experience recurrences of fits of anger over and over.

THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS: What can I do about these sinful actions I have clung to that aren’t good for me? The Bible says if I repent, then I will be restored. This happens because repentance is saying the same thing God says about my sin: it’s bad for me, and I want to get rid of it. But I need to do something first.

I need to give up. The passage says there is a time and a season for this, and that time is now. I need to give up only living for myself, so God can lead me to live for Him. I need to give up living a life of fear and anger, so God can lead me to a life of freedom over these sins.

Giving up is not easy; it doesn’t come naturally to me. I was taught to never give up but to keep going forward. My problem is that I’m moving forward in the wrong direction. Only God can show me the direction He wants me to go, and it’s not north, south, east or west. He wants me to look up and fully experience His goodness. Lord, I’m ready for a change. Please help me give up my life to You, so You can keep what’s good and throw away the rest.

May you be blessed,

Chaplain Wayne Ruckman