Take Out the Garbage

Roadblocks are kind of like spiritual garbage that stink up your creative flow and block your ability to experience the fullness God has for you. Anytime garbage and trash get in the pipeline of your life, it affects everything that flows through you. Imagine that your life is a clean pipeline designed to flow fresh, clear water through it. Now imagine a yucky buildup on the inside – trash, garbage, dirt, grime, oil, greasy residue. No matter how clean the water is that flows into the pipe, once it passes through that dirty conduit, it will come out dirty. There is no way around it.

That is how it is with your life and creative expression. 

God’s intention is to pour life-giving water and refreshment through you, but when garbage is in the pipeline, it severely affects your ability to experience Him in all His goodness. As a result, your view of God becomes skewed based on the specific garbage you have in your life, and thus it becomes a roadblock. The longer you allow these roadblocks to remain intact, the larger they become, and the more difficult they are to remove.

I have discovered in my own life that most of the garbage I dealt with started with a belief about God or a situation that wasn’t true. It goes like this: Something negative happens and because of my inability to understand or process the situation I develop a belief or judgment that is simply untrue. Compounding that are my words, beliefs and judgments that begin to create the reality that I experience, both positively and negatively. 

Thankfully, God has a plan for restoration. It’s what He calls the renewing of our mind. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 10:5 that we are to take every thought captive. Imagine taking every thought you have and reviewing it according to God’s Word, not your own experience. Once you learn to create a habit of intentionally reviewing your thoughts, you can start making informed choices to either plant those thoughts in your heart or discard those thoughts and replace them with ones that are based in God’s Word. Whatever you plant in your heart will produce fruit and the life you’re living right now is the fruit of the seeds you’ve sown. Do you want to get rid of the stinkin’ thinkin’? Are you ready for a change?

Take time to meditate on these scriptures and this teaching in your journal. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any areas of your thought-life or beliefs that don’t align with His best for your life. Simply repent and ask the Holy Spirit to show you His Truth. Replace the lies you’ve believed with truth and begin to cultivate this new reality of God’s Word each day, moment by moment. Do that and you’ll start seeing change happen quickly.