Unwelcome Inhabitants

My daughter sent me photos the other day of some form of beetle larvae emerging from cut logs she had stacked in her fireplace. Needless to say, the wood was removed hastily and sent out to the outside fire pit to be burned post haste! The weird thing is that those logs had been in there for quite some time and there was absolutely no signs of any life in them! In time, the 'hidden' began to be revealed! What 'inhabited' the dark spaces of those logs was being revealed. My daughter is no fan of bugs of any sort - in larvae form or otherwise - so she immediately sprang into action to rid herself of their existence. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all the things that 'inhabit' the dark spaces of our lives were dealt with in an equally swift and decisive manner?

Let the word of the Anointed One richly inhabit your lives. With all wisdom teach, counsel, and instruct one another. Sing the psalms, compose hymns and songs inspired by the Spirit, and keep on singing—sing to God from hearts full and spilling over with thankfulness. (Colossians 3:16)

When the Word of God begins to inhabit the dark spaces of our lives, it is like the larvae of our sinful intentions begin to surface! We find out just how much we have been trying to conceal in those dark places. My daughter didn't recognize what was emerging from those logs, but she could Google it and became aware quite quickly that the emerging larvae were actually beetles that lay dormant inside the wood, sometimes for a few years. When the conditions are right, they emerge! Sin and our 'darker intentions' are just like that - hidden, not really revealing themselves until the 'conditions are right' for them to be revealed. God's Word is a good 'revealer' of what is hidden!

Where the Word sinks in there is a change in the 'condition' of the heart. The things hidden are no longer content to just lurk in those dark spaces because God's Word is meant to reveal what is hidden, bringing it to the surface so it can be dealt with swiftly and definitively! The condition of our heart changes when the Word begins to be 'grafted in' - there is a change in the life-flow of our emotions, thoughts, and decisions. We begin to 'sort out' the stuff that doesn't bring us much good in life and we begin to replace that 'space' occupied by all that negative stuff with more uplifting and rewarding grace from God. In turn, what once occupied is no longer allow space to inhabit!

How are our hearts filled with the 'right stuff'? It is through the intake of the Word of God. The Word changes the condition of our hard hearts, making us soft and pliable in his hands, able to be transformed into a thing of beauty. I don't know about you, but my heart had some very hard places in it as a result of repeated wrong choices in my youth. These had to be broken down through God's grace and in time, those spaces once inhabited by some pretty lousy choices were inhabited by the presence and peace of God. Now, those spaces occasionally get visits from temptations that continue to bother me from time to time, but I don't have to allow them to occupy that space any longer. I am free to dismiss them without any guilt! Just sayin!