As I was sitting having my afternoon tea yesterday, hubby having already finished his went out into the front yard to keep on doing the job he had begun earlier.

This job he does regularly as it not only keeps the house well maintained by looking wonderful but an important application. Can you guess what he was doing?

Yes, he was cleaning out the gutters of leaf litter & debris from our many trees out the front. And as he went he was also pruning & trimming the bushes that were beginning to get overgrown & block the light from our covered Pergola area.

But the clearing of gutters also has an important application, that when it rains our gutters don’t get blocked & over flow causing damage to the house & in Summertime it lessens the chance of our house catching fire from Bush Fire embers.

As I watched him while sipping my cuppa, I prayed silently for God’s protection upon him from falls & other incidents. As he was up & down the ladder & moving along the builders board (from his days building homes) that was straddled between the ladders.

But this all had me thinking the following;

How often do we clear out the spiritual gutters of our life?

And thought this a great topic for our cuppa & time of reflection today my friend. So let’s grab our mugs, treats & get comfy before we continue.

Now we’re comfy let’s begin…

The Leaf Litter & Debris of Life

Have you noticed in this busy hubbub called life a lot of small little pieces of life litter can start collecting in our spiritual gutters?

Life litter like;

• Debris from disappointment interrupting the flow of faith, hope & trust in God’s plan & Will for our life or the lives of our loved ones.
• Or the fine dust of impatience building up.
• Or fallen leaves of judgement & intolerance for those who are acting like annoying sandpaper to our lives.
• Or maybe it’s thinking I’m spiritually okay (over confidence) & actually not notice the dust, debris & rotting leaves collecting in our spiritual life.

Life litter that starts to collect & build if not cleared before the Lord will eventually cause a blockage to the flow of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

For we’re advised in God’s Word to;

“…Do not quench the Holy Spirit.” 1 Thessalonians 5: 19

Let’s just pause for a moment here & look at that word quench & its meanings;

To extinguish or a sudden loss of conductivity or a reduction in light or a rapid loss of power.

Wow, doesn’t that put things into perspective! You see if we don’t regularly clean out the spiritual gutters of our lives debris will build up. Just like it does in our house gutters giving a pathway for the fiery darts from the enemy of our souls to flame any or all of the above discontent!

God warned us to take up the Shield of Faith to avoid these darts;

“…above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.” Ephesians 6:16 NKJV

And how do we take up the Shield of Faith? By walking with the Holy Spirit daily, spending time with Him in prayer & His Word.

Let’s get personal

I personally love spending time with the Lord early in the morning just after I’ve made my first cuppa of the day. Because this is the time when He & I are alone while hubby is still sleeping.

It’s a precious time when I can totally focus my scattered senses, as life has a tendency to scatter them every which way, upon the presence of God & commit my day to Him.

It’s a time where I learn new things from His Word, even though I’ve been studying it for well over four decades. And where the Holy Spirit can enlighten my spirit to His direction & Will for my life on a daily basis.

It’s also the prime time to examine those spiritual gutters with Him to see if any fallen leaves or debris has collected & needs to be cleared!

Postscript

When my husband came inside he explained that he had found roots in the gutter from our Umbrella tree! It had made it’s way up the downpipe & spread fine roots into the gutter each direction from the position of the downpipe!

He was astonished at how quickly this had happened as he had cleaned these gutters completely out not so along ago.

And I thought; Yes, if we don’t keep a close watch on our spiritual gutters, roots of discontent may morph into resentment that eventually will grow into bitterness. As shared in the following post in 2018;

Healing or bitterness?

Well, let’s keep watch on our spiritual gutters & bring them before the Lord often!

Until next time,

Jennifer

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or in Prayer

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