Clearing the Blocked Path – Timothy Night Feb 2024

Prepare the Way of the Lord!

Matthew. 3:3, Mark 1:3, and Luke 3:4 in the Bible tell us to make the Lord’s paths clear and straight as if you are clearing the path for a visiting king.

The winter season here in the south will look very different than up north. In the north the paths and roads can be covered in snow, ice, and debris from these storms. Here in the south, we can get hail, cold rains, and icy winds as the cold fronts come through. The last severe windy cold front that came through my area produced this blocked path in my yard.

This tree I had since my children were in grade school. It has grown and continued to flower over the years. Even in the past when the hurricanes would come through and blow it over uprooting it, I would stand it up, prop it up, and brace it to stabilize it to give it time to reroot again. But this time was different.

When it blew over, I discovered that there was internal decay. That decay in the middle compromised it’s strength and was the reason for the tipping over this time. I have found that to include God in my decisions is a wise thing to do. So, after asking, I felt that the tree needed to be removed.

 

In the past I used hand tools but for this size tree that would have taken me so long. For this job I decided to pull out my handy dandy mini chainsaw. In just a short while I had this tree cut up and ready for what came next.

 

I hauled it to the street trash pile so that it could be picked up and removed off my property. As I am doing all this the Lord begins to whisper some reflections into my mind and heart.

 

Season Reflections!

Just like we have natural work to clear our yards and garden paths in the winter, we have spiritual kingdom work to do also. God asked me, if I had anything blocking or covering up the pathway in my heart, mind, or soul that would prevent me from using, receiving, or expressing agapeō love with God, myself, or others just like it says in Matthew 22:37,39 and Mark 12:30?

I had to go look at what agapeō love was.

• It is not a romantic or sexual love
• It loves in a social welcoming sense
• It loves in a moral sense especially embracing in judgment and deliberate will as a matter of principal and duty
• It means to be content with
• It means to be well pleased with

It is a choice and a decision to do and express!

I asked myself again if I could have anything blocking or covering my heart, soul, or mind that would prevent the receiving or expressing of agapeō love to and from God, myself, or others?

My answer was a yes!

The Holy Spirit lit up an area that was covered and blocked in me. It was an old reaction mindset that was shaped and formed throughout my life. It’s beginning started early in my life when I was adopted and continued to be reinforced over the years with traumatic events and personal choices reacting to those events. God showed me every time something would happen to knock me over, hurt me, or push me down, I would prop myself back up with certain protective behaviors so that I could keep going on. I used this way of thinking, living, and acting convinced that I was growing stronger and healthier but all the while I was slowly decaying deep inside like in the 2nd picture of the tree. I was weakening and rotting from the inside out. 

Just like in my garden, I had a series of events happen this winter and it knocked me over.  I felt God say to me that this mindset with its behaviors had to be removed also. I have been cutting up the memories and piling up the debris of the past at God’s altar to be removed from my life. I will not let anything block the paths for this season or the next. I had to choose to forgive and change with the power of the Holy Spirit.

My neighbors watched as I cut up that tree and drug it to the street. I piled it one stick and branch at a time so it could be taken away. I also have had to be open and humble even though the people nearest are watching me and the Holy Spirit do this work together at the altar of the Lord.

A time for everything!

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says that everything has a time and a season for every purpose. 

1 Corinthians 13:13 says you will take three things into eternity with you. It also says the greatest thing you can take is agapeō love.

Have you had anything happen over the past several months that have knocked things over in your life and blocked your path of love?

Jeremiah 17:10 says that God knows your heart and mind and sees you as you really are. Don’t pretend there is nothing if there is something. 

Isaiah 1:18-19 promises that God will reason with us if we will be but willing and obedient. 

I bless you with humility and strength to clear your pathways of love now, this season, in Jesus’ name.