THIS OLD HOUSE

Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself
from these things, he will be a vessel
for honor, sanctified, useful to the
Master, prepared for every good work.
2 Timothy 2:21

Recently, Brian took me to my hometown for just about 36 hours or a little more for me to revisit some special places that are still meaningful to me. We started with a nearby state park that had been a special place. It was the same for my sister Kay because in our younger years, we visited there often and walked some of the trails. This time, the trek on the trails with my hubby was about 70 years from those days...in a slight rain no less. Thought I would probably meet the Lord there and He'd just take me on Home. The trek got about that desperate.

There were other places...church where I was saved and served, cemeteries where family and friends are interred, city park and so many other places we could drive to. There was one experience I had when five years old when my Mother let me walk by myself from my house to my Grandma Benbrook's house. I asked Brian to drive it to see just how far that was for a little girl to walk alone. It was the way we always went so I had no problem getting myself there.

Along the way, there were friends of my Mother's who would look out and greet me. Later I caught on that it was a set-up on my Mother's part to insure my safety. Tuesday we drove that way I had walked and it turned out to be seven tenths of a mile. Of course, this was back then when children could be out with a great deal of safety.

We drove up a slight hill to view Grandma's house that was just over it. Brian stopped and I took in the view of the house. It's the same house with some of the same features I remembered. We slowly drove to the front of the house...something was wrong. I looked carefully only to see that there it stood, empty. The inside of the windows had that dusty film on them that indicates a lack of care. We drove to the side of the house (It sits on a corner) and the look of the house there was the same. I pointed to the two windows of the living room where my Grandma's casket was placed after her death for the viewing and wake. I viewed the backyard where once was a chicken pen, where I had one time left the gate open and the chickens escaped. There was the yard where Grandma had a huge garden every spring and summer. Now, no life to speak of ...only growing weeds.

Here's my point. At one time, that was an active, loving home where my grandparents lived. They had five children who would come and go for visits. Those family times were full of memories galore and lots of fun. I loved being there at every opportunity. I felt loved there...safe, the calm before the storm of our own immediate family coming into hard times.

The house....old, dirty, not well kept and empty. That wasn't the history of that house, but now, it's different. Many of us are in the aging process or even beyond what we thought we would be in age. Like I read, “Getting old came so quickly.” I guess it did for that house as well. Despite our driving around other places, the picture in my mind of that house stayed with me. I would have loved to see children playing in the yard, a car in the drive and perhaps a big garden in back yard like I remembered. There's no reason it couldn't be like that with some paint and fixing up, but there it sits, looking very sad and alone.

No matter our ages and despite the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, there's such a danger like that house of our becoming old in our ways, dirty with sin and no beneficial spiritual life going on in us. The Holy Spirit prompts and tugs at us but we get to the point at times of giving up on ourselves spiritually...cobwebs in the corners, no more light in the windows. It may be that there are times when one may think it's just too much trouble to get up and head for church and Bibles may rest on end tables left unread. The “smallest” of sin can be rationalized while knowing that sin is sin with God and needs to be dealt with. We may draw into ourselves, losing the joy of beneficial contacts with others who may need our touch in their lives. These things can happen for anyone of any age with so much turmoil and worrisome events going on in our day.

My prayer for us is that we wake up to the fact that our bodies are temples for the indwelling Holy Spirit. For we believers who have the Holy Spirit living in us, we have no excuse for becoming run down and of little use spiritually speaking. No matter where we are on life's experience scale, we need to have eyes wide open to the things of God because of time spent in the Word and in prayer. Any cleaning up we need, the Holy Spirit is happy to help us with that Instead of being like an old lonely house, we can be a gleaming and useful temple of the Holy Spirit as God intended for each of us to be

Thank You Father, that in our lives, You are the same yesterday, today and forever. Thank You for the years You have blessed us with, but help us to keep going for You, casting all excuses away from us. Thank You for Your Spirit's prompting, correction and teaching. Thank You for Jesus who came and made our lives so worth living. In His name...Amen