A Spiritual Dehumidifier

The basement in our new house is quite interesting. For one thing, it is nice on these hot summer days because it is almost 10 degrees cooler down there. But besides being cool, it is damp and dark. We've noticed moisture on the pipes in our laundry room...which eventually drips down to the floor. We've noticed these long black bugs come out during the night and invade our living room.

The most concerning, of course, is the moisture situation as we certainly don't want to end up with a mold problem in the future. So because of that, we decided to invest in a dehumidifier. We plugged in our dehumidifier on Monday night and have been simply amazed at the results. From Monday night to Wednesday night, we have already emptied the LARGE water bucket 5 times!!! Our basement no longer has a musty smell....and best of all, our pipes no longer sweat!!!

As I emptied the fifth bucket today, I started to wonder how this clever machine works. It brings in the air....takes out the moisture...and then blows the air back out of the top. How does it get the moisture out of the air????

It made me think we all need a "dehumidifier" in our lives. Now I'm not talking a physical one necessarily...that is unless you have a damp basement like we do. But I'm talking about something that we can "filter" ourselves through. The dehumidifer we have basically cleans the air and makes it safer for us to live in. A spiritual dehumifier would do the same thing.

We can filter our lives....everything we say and do...through our God. In fact, we SHOULD filter our lives through Him. When we take who we are and surrender our lives to God...the result should be "cleaner"!

When we decide to turn off our spiritual dehumidifier, that is when our lives become moldy and smelly.

No one likes mold growing in their homes. How much more should we try to get rid of mold growing in our lives! Let God "dehumidify" your life today!

Tear Down the Walls

I'm sure you are all wondering if I have completely forgotten about my blog. I really haven't meant to keep everyone waiting this long for the next post. My daughter keeps bugging me to post more so she can read it.

Life has been a little busy in the Brown household. In the past two months we have taken a missions trip to Cambodia and then packed up our entire household and moved to Tomah, WI, where my husband is now the pastor of Lighthouse A/G. God is so awesome...and He has specifically ordered our steps in this path to be here in Tomah. We are so very thankful to be part of His awesome plan.

Tonight was a simply amazing service at church where walls were brought down and the church worshipped with everything in them...and we "had CHURCH!" as Grandma Anna said! As I was completely consumed in God's presence during the worship time, God spoke to me about walls.

What is a wall? The walls in our house enclose each room. Walls provide a barrier. Walls are not meant to walk through. Walls are normally permanent.

God reminded me of an incident that happened earlier today in our house. My mom was visiting and we were sitting on our deck in the smoldering heat. We normally leave the sliding glass door and screen open so our dog can go back and forth between the house and the screened in deck. However, since we actually had our air conditioner running, we left the door shut.

As we were visiting we suddenly heard an awful BANG!!! A few seconds later, my daughter emerged from the house and came out on the deck rubbing her foot. The BANG we heard was my daughter completely running into the sliding glass door. She didn't look close enough to see that the door was actually closed!!! I'm thankful she wasn't hurt at all....but looking back, that was quite hysterical!

When God brought that to my memory, I felt like He was comparing that to the walls we put up in our own lives...especially in the area of worship and our relationship with God. Often we limit ourselves in what we want to do...or what we are willing to do for God. We have our comfort zone...and the walls we put up around us limit us....or prevent us from going outside our comfort zone.

And then after time...we get so use to the walls, that we often completly forget that they are even there! We become conditioned to the limits we have placed on our lives....rendering us almost incapable of moving forward without BANGING into the wall.

But I have good news!!!!! The spiritual walls are NOT permanent!!! They are easy to take down with God's help. The key is us. We have to be willing to move beyond the walls. We have to be willing to move outside our comfort zone. We have to be willing to do something different...something uncomfortable.

But really...how can we ever grow in our relationship with God if we never move outside those walls? How can we ever grow without change?

If we want change...and growth....that requires moving outside what we are comfortable with.