Delete

For the past few months I have been having major issues with my mobile phone. It drops calls, there is often an echo and I can sometimes hear other people's conversations. The phone was bad and it only got worse after I dropped it into the water while I was having a pedicure one afternoon. Yes, I was sitting in the spa chair and I had placed the phone between my legs on the chair. I leaned up for something and it fell into the bubbling, hot water! It did dry out and I have used it ever since. My husband says it can't be too bad of a phone if it survived a pedicure! But ever since I have been on a mission to get a new phone! I knew the only way I could get a new phone right now would be through an upgrade offered by my mobile phone company. Last week after paying the bill online, I looked at our account page and much to my surprise my phone qualified for a FREE upgrade! Yesterday afternoon the Fed Ex lady delivered the phone to my front door. I felt like a kid waiting on a Christmas present to be delivered! It was perfect timing too. The kids were napping so I had time to set up my new, better, fancier, decked out mobile phone! The great thing about my phone company is they use something called the SIM card. The SIM card had stored all of the phone numbers that I had put into the phone. I hear stories of people getting new phones and having to manually type all of their information from the old phone into the new phone. I was excited to know that I would not have to take part in such a time consuming activity. Thank you SIM card! So I took my old SIM card and placed it in my new phone. Within sixty seconds I had transferred every phone number into my new phone. Then I took my new SIM card placed it in my new phone and called a number to activate my new phone. A very quick and easy process! I didn't have to set up voicemail, type in phone numbers or anything else. The SIM card did all of the work.

After setting up my new phone I decided to go through and look at all of the phone numbers. As I began to scroll, I realized all of the numbers that I had not used in a long time. Some are phone numbers of people that I used to go to church with but no longer keep in touch. Some are phone numbers I don't recognize and there are even names that I don't recognize. So much had been stored that needed to be deleted. An old friend, our Real Estate agent, our pediatrician we had in our former city, our Dentist we had in our former city, a lot of people from a place where we used to live. Since I had the time and the kids were sleeping, I decided to go ahead and delete all of the numbers I no longer use.

It seems that every time I get comfortable in this life, God comes along and shows me something in my life that needs to be taken care of. Something that needs to be deleted. It may be my attitude or resentment I'm holding on to. It may be an inability to forgive someone. Maybe it's the way I am treating my husband or the way I am disciplining my children. And quite often, it's the words that come from my mouth that need to be deleted so they can't even reach the tip of my tongue. There is always something in my life that could be refined or changed completely. My marriage is always in need of me changing my attitude or serving my husband 100% with my words, my actions and my body. I can always get better at parenting and I constantly need to forgive so that others can forgive me. As a Christian, we should never come to a point when we think there is nothing we need to change. There is always something that needs changing, always! We will never reach that point of completion until we stand at the feet of Jesus. So until then, we have to constantly take inventory of what has been programmed into our lives. A lot of things have been programmed that we don't need. Things that are not very becoming or flattering to a Godly woman. It's a place we have to come to where we can look deep inside, push our pride aside and admit to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the things that are not pleasing to Him. We have to completely be naked before the Lord. When we do this, we experience freedom in Christ. It's worth the entire process and our lives will be changed.

Today I am thinking about all the things in my life that need to be deleted. It will be a manual process. You see I can't delete it until I can admit. The Lord has to show me all the things that need deleting before they can be deleted. Then I must confess it to Him. At that moment, I can be set free. Is there someone I am not forgiving? Is there something I have said about someone that is ugly? Am I gossiping? I am I negative? Am I withholding sexually from my Husband? What are my motives? What is the condition of my heart? Am I struggling with materialistic things? Is pride a big factor in my life? Do I think bad about myself? What are the things that keep me from seeing myself through the eyes of Jesus? What are the things that are keeping me from ministering? What are the things that are keeping me from knowing who I am in Christ?
Those are the things that must be deleted.

I used to sing a song in Sunday School when I was a little girl. It's a short song that comes straight from scripture. When I get alone with God and I allow myself to really expose the real me, I hear the song over and over again. "He who began a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it..." And in my own words, faithful to delete it.

Philippians 1:6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus