Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 13

Morning Routine

• Get up and get dressed to lace-up shoes; fixing your hair and face
• Look at your posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom
• Go to the FlyLady BigTent group and read messages
• Recognize the negative voices and change them. Remember, you are FLYing now!
• Put out your Hot Spots for two minutes
• Five-minute Room Rescue (pick any room in the house). Set your timer and go!
• Spend 15 Minutes decluttering each day. You can’t organize clutter!

Before-Bed Routine

• Keep your sink shining
• Lay out your clothes for tomorrow
• Put out your Hot Spot. It will make you happy in the morning!

Day 13 – Zone Cleaning

Flylady breaks up the house into “Zones”  and each week you’ll be in a different zone, like this week, we are in the Living Room zone but next week there will be a different room. Today We are going to look up Kelly's Zone Cleaning Mission for today and do it. The reason for the zone cleaning missions is so you don’t have to do a “Spring cleaning” of your entire house… ever… again! The reason is, through zone cleaning, you are constantly cleaning and decluttering every area of your house, a week at a time, all year long. The cleaning mission for today says to spend your declutter time (15 minutes) in this zone everyday this week, if you don’t have any clutter in this area then you can move on to the Detailed Cleaning List. I’m not here quite yet (almost, YAY!) so I’ll still be decluttering. Also, Kelly’s Mission for today says to clean or replace your air filters this little task will not only help you breathe easier but its is easier on your air unit’s motor and reduces energy costs! That doesn’t sound too hard does it? :)

(These next statements are my personal opinion and views and are not affiliated with Flylady.net)

As I was thinking about the thought of “Zone Cleaning” and how that can apply to our spiritual lives I kept thinking of a teacher/evangelist wife that taught our “Christian Womanhood” class in college. (BTW she is a flylady follower) I can’t remember if she told us this in class or if I heard her say it somewhere else but she was talking about her personal devotions and how she keeps things “fresh.” One of her suggestions was to read a chapter of Proverbs everyday – there are 31 chapters and either 30-31 days in a month, just seems to fit doesn’t it :) – what I thought was interesting about this is that she told us to look for a different word or phrase each month through the book. For instance: January find all the verses that have to do with Joy, February – Love, March – creation or anything about flowers, trees, wind, sea etc., April – Tongue/mouth and so on through the year. This way your almost doing a word study through the book of Proverbs each month. What I’ve found through looking for verses about a certain topic, like joy or love, is that you start to focus on those things in your day-to-day life too! Just like Zone Cleaning your focusing on a certain area and cleaning it up or improving it in the same way you focus on these area’s and let God do some zone cleaning in your heart or teach you something in life.

I hope this has been understandable and not just rambling. What is something you would suggest for “zone cleaning” your heart?

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 11

We’ve had an interesting week to say the least so I’m blogging and adding another baby step about every other day :S Sorry :S Now that things seem to be calming down a little bit I’ll try my best to do better. So far we are:

Morning Routine

• Read Your Bible
• Get up and get dressed to lace-up shoes; fixing your hair and face
• Look at your posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom
• Go to the FlyLady BigTent group and read messages
• Recognize the negative voices and change them. Remember, you are FLYing now!
• Put out your Hot Spots for two minutes
• Five-minute Room Rescue (pick any room in the house). Set your timer and go!
• Spend 15 Minutes decluttering each day. You can’t organize clutter!

Before-Bed Routine

• Keep your sink shining
• Lay out your clothes for tomorrow
• Put out your Hot Spot. It will make you happy in the morning!

Day 12 – Keep on keepin’ on

Today we’re just going to be continuing to do the things you’ve already been doing. Keep your sticky notes up to remind you to get dressed to shoes and shine your sink. Also, keep adding to your “Inspiration” page as you think of things.

(These next statements are my own personal thoughts and views and not affiliated with Flylady.net)

Today we’re going to “Keep on keepin’ on” in our Christian walk with God too. Keep reading your Bible, keep praying and handing God the struggles and problems your facing, Keep going to church and learning about the God who loved you so much He sent His Son to die for your sins. Some days these things are easier said than done but don’t quit because these simple things are going to be the most beneficial to your life (even more than cleaning and organizing your house, but don’t tell Flylady I said that!)

I learned a song in my freshman year of college that has helped me keep going. It is called “Don’t Quit” and it was written by Doug Lowery the chorus goes like this;

Don’t quit, there’s a job to be done.

Don’t quit, there’s a race to be run.

Don’t quit, there’s a crown to be won.

Don’t quit, weary Christian, don’t quit.

Don’t give up in your walk with God, the best is yet to come!

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 10

Morning Routine

• Read Your Bible
• Get up and get dressed to lace-up shoes; fixing your hair and face
• Look at your posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom
• Go to the FlyLady BigTent group and read messages
• Recognize the negative voices and change them. Remember, you are FLYing now!
• Put out your Hot Spots for two minutes
• Five-minute Room Rescue (pick any room in the house). Set your timer and go!
• Spend 15 Minutes decluttering each day. You can’t organize clutter!

Before-Bed Routine

• Keep your sink shining
• Lay out your clothes for tomorrow
• Put out your Hot Spot. It will make you happy in the morning!

Today we’re going to add another page to our control journals - “Inspiration” is its name. On this page your going to write down different things or phrases that inspire you! Here are some of Flylady’s:

• You can do anything for 15 minutes
• Housework done incorrectly still blesses your family
• You can’t organize clutter; you can only get rid of it.

These are some of my own personal favorites:

• Beauty without character is worthless – Mrs. Jenny Deatrick
• Quitting is the only sure way to fail. – Mr. Craig Perkins
• Live your life with Open Hands – Dr. Ernest Childs

One thing I do with my favorite quotes is write them on a 3x5 card and clip them on the fridge where I’m sure to see it and read it. Every so often I change what I have on the fridge and put the old card into a recipe box (I’ve probable got over 100 cards with quotes, verses and even some message outlines that really spoke to my heart). Doing something like this is a really good way to keep your heart on fire for the Lord and it is another reminder of what God is working on in your life.

So what do you do to keep you inspired? And what are some of your favorite quotes? I’d love for you to leave some in the comments section – I’m always adding new ones to my file! :)

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 10

Morning Routine

• Read your Bible
• Get up and get dressed to lace-up shoes; fixing your hair and face
• Look at your posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom
• Go to the FlyLady BigTent group and read messages
• Recognize the negative voices and change them. Remember, you are FLYing now!
• Put out your Hot Spots for two minutes
• Five-minute Room Rescue (pick any room in the house). Set your timer and go!

Before-Bed Routine

• Keep your sink shining
• Lay out your clothes for tomorrow
• Put out your Hot Spot. It will make you happy in the morning!

 

Today I’ll be introducing the “Flylady motto” which is: “You can do anything for 15 minutes.” You can sweep, vacuum, mop, declutter, organize, or whatever for 15 minutes. This does not mean that you’ll get everything done in that 15 minutes, its not a race against the timer its just a set amount of time given to perform a task and then stopping when the timer goes off. Today your supposed to set your timer for 15 minutes and go gather up all of the trash. When your finished with that set the timer for another 15 minutes and just sit down and relax!

(These next statements are my personal opinion and are not affiliated with Flylady.net)

Its a really neat idea “You can do anything for 15 minutes” and very true. You can do anything for 15 minutes. Here recently there have been many needs, problems, issues, whatever you want to call them but they each have been heavy on my mind. When I read today’s Baby Step I knew that I really can do anything for 15 minutes that includes prayer! It seems to me that God is trying His best to grow my faith because almost every day something comes up that I can’t handle, its too big or too much for me. But one major comfort I have is that I have a God that is bigger and stronger than anything I could ever face!

There are many times that people ask me to pray about something for/with them and probably 9 out of 10 times I walk away from the conversation with all the best intentions of adding that request to my prayer list and diligently pray for that circumstance only to forget all about it. My Mom-in-law just wrote an excellent post on her blog Apple Slices of our Life about intercessory prayer and something she learned at a BSF Leaders retreat she just attended called A-B-C Checklist. I really hope you’ll go over and read it, it was a real blessing and a help to me personally in this area.

Something I’d like to add to my personal daily routine is to spend some time (maybe 15 minutes?) in a concentrated prayer effort. Our Heavenly Father wants us to bring our problems, no matter how great or small, to Him and leave our worries at His feet for Him to take care of for us. I want to encourage each of you to consider spending some extra time in prayer this week – remember you can do anything for 15 minutes!

Baby Steps: Cleaning my Heart and Home – Day 9

Morning Routine

• Get up and get dressed to lace-up shoes; fixing your hair and face
• Look at your posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom
• Go to the FlyLady BigTent group and read messages
• Recognize the negative voices and change them. Remember, you are FLYing now!
• Put out your Hot Spots for two minutes

Before-Bed Routine

• Keep your sink shining
• Lay out your clothes for tomorrow
• Put out your Hot Spot. It will make you happy in the morning!

Day 9 – 5 minute room rescue

Day 9 Instructions

Today we’re going to start “rescuing” our homes from clutter. For today’s challenge your going to need three boxes, one labeled “Throw Away” the next labeled “Give Away” and the last one labeled “Put Away.” Pick a room in your house, I decided to start in the “man cave,” – that title just sounds like a good room to start in, maybe once I’m done I can change it to “the organized man cave” :) – Set your timer for just 5 minutes and work your way clockwise around the room, don’t skip anything just take whatever happens to be next in the room. Once the timer goes off take the trash out, put the box of “give away” items into your car so you can drop it off at good will next time your out and then pick up your “put-away box” and, as quick as you can, put everything in it where it goes. You can read all of Flylady’s instructions and advice for decluttering here.

(the next statements are my own opinion and are not affiliated with Flylady.net)

As I was pondering the 5 minute room rescue and a Biblical principle to put with it I couldn’t seem to get away from the word “Rescue.” What does it mean to rescue something? or someone?

Rescue refers to responsive operations that usually involve the saving of life, or prevention of injury during an incident or dangerous situation. – this definition was found using Wikipedia -

The idea of rescuing someone for the Christian should bring to mind those people in your life that are living without Christ as their personal Savior. There are many verses that tell us to go and spread the gospel, its a command to tell others of the light that is within us.

If your reading this today and you’ve never experienced the salvation rescue and you need to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior I’d encourage you to read Kenny's Salvation Testimony or to contact me. I’d love to share with you how Jesus died for your sins and how you can be rescued from the penalty of those sins. And for those of us who are saved, what are you doing to rescue those around you? Are you telling others the gospel of Christ? Why don’t you seek to “rescue” someone today?

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 8

Remember I told you a couple days ago that we would be splitting our routines up into Morning routines and Before bed routines. Well today is the day!

Morning Routine

• Read you Bible
• Get up and get dressed to lace-up shoes; fixing your hair and face
• Look at your posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom
• Go to the FlyLady BigTent group and read messages
• Recognize the negative voices and change them. Remember, you are FLYing now!
• Put out your Hot Spots for two minutes

Before Bed Routine

• Keep your sink shining
• Lay out your clothes for tomorrow
• Put out your Hot Spot. It will make you happy in the morning!

Today you need to find an old 3-ring binder and fill it with paper. After you’ve done this write, on the first page, your morning routines and on the second page, your before bed routines in pencil. This is going to be a changing/working document so don’t worry about getting it perfect.

(These next statements are my own personal opinions and views and are not affiliated with Flylady.net)

In our RU program at church we were given these journals back in October for our personal devotion time. For each day it has a section for “Daily Bible Time,” where you can write thoughts from your Bible reading, “Time with God’s Teachers,” a place to write down convicting or motivating things from a message you heard, “Personal Prayer Time” which is broken into 4 categories – praises, needs, forgiveness, and protection - “Time in Wise Counsel,” here you can write down questions you may have about the Bible or your reading and lastly “Leadings/Convictions of the Spirit” a place to write things you feel led to stop doing or start doing or things you should be careful of or avoid. When we were given these journals our Pastor took time to teach us how and why we should be writing our devotion time and thoughts down.

His first reason is because, often times if we don’t write it down we wont remember what God spoke to us about. It just becomes a more permanent thought if its been written down where you can return to it later. Also it makes our relationship with God personal. To me its like the love letters Kenny wrote to me in college, I don’t remember all of the conversations we had face to face but I can always go back and re-read those letters and know what he said. When I write down what God has spoken to me about from my Bible reading or from listening to the preacher in church I can always go back and re-read those thoughts and remember a decision made or receive a renewed conviction about why I’m doing what I’m doing.

Another thought he gave about using a journal and writing things down was the application of “Input/Output.” Its like a projector, on it you have a cord going from a computer into a spot on the projector called “input” this is where all the information about your movie or presentation goes from the computer into projector. But then you also have “output” what comes out of the lens on the projector and is displayed on a screen for all to see.

“When we read the word of God that is input. Input enables us to output to others what God gave us during our input.” 

– Pastor Mike Haley

Flylady is encouraging us to write down the things we are learning to do so we can see the habits and the input in our lives and be encouraged by the output its producing in our homes. Let God input into your life so you can then output to others what God is doing, and one of the best ways to do this is by writing those input moments into a journal so you can review them.

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 7

Sorry I had some difficulties posting this weekend and didn’t get it resolved until Sunday… At least I think its resolved :S I’ll just be picking up with Flylady where we left off last Wednesday instead of trying to catch back up. Just for the record if you are doing the Baby steps with me you can go straight to her website: Flylady.net and click on the “Beginner Baby Steps” tab and read everything for yourself as well as do it at your own pace.

Now that that’s taken care of… So far we are:

• Read your Bible
• Getting dressed to lace-up shoes
• Keeping our sink shining
• Going to Big Tent and reading messages
• Looking at our posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom
• Recognizing the negative voices and changing them so you can FLY!
• Put out your Hot Spot for two minutes. Just pick one!

Day 7 – Pick out your clothes for tomorrow

Flylady's day 7 instructions

Tonight before you go to bed pick out what your going to wear tomorrow and either hang it on a door or lay it out in your bedroom. This, for some reason is the hardest for me but the best because if I take the time to pick out my clothes the night before the next morning goes SOOOO much better! I also find that when I pick my clothes out ahead of time I have less excuses for not reading my Bible… Just sayin!

(The next statements are my own personal opinion and views and not affiliated with Flylady.net)

I was reading a chapter from “Nevertheless I Live" the book we use in RU, and was struck by this statement;

“You will never do the things God wants you to do until you do the things God wants you to do even when you don’t want to.”

Its a little confusing but the idea is that if your not willing to do what God wants you to do then you wont do anything. Just like Flylady, there are things that I think “do I really have to do this every day?” If I want my house to be clean, if I want to develop the habits that will help me keep it clean, then yes, I do have to do these baby steps everyday! This is the principle of being faithful in small things so God can use you in the big things. Today, and everyday, lets focus on being dedicated to doing what we know we should do so we can go on to do what God wants us to do

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 6

Well, yesterday became so hectic that I missed a day :S But that’s alright because the great thing about the Baby steps is when you fall you get back up and keep going. So here is what we are already doing:

Reading our Bible

Getting dressed to lace-up shoes

Keeping our sink shining

Reading messages from Flylady

Looking at our posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom

Recognizing the negative voices when you hear them and changing the words around

Day 6 – Hot Spots

Flylady's Day 6 instructions

Hot Spots are the convenient places where we drop things. We set the mail here or our keys or the tape or anything else we intend to use later or put away. My Hot Spots (I have several) are the Dining room and the Kitchen tables, the bar and the coffee table in the living room. I thought about taking a “before” picture of them but I’m a little embarrassed to :S I’m sure you’ll understand. Today’s baby step says for us to set the timer for 2 minutes and clean off those Hot Spots. Stop when the timer goes off after 2 minutes even if your not done. This is something we’ll eventually be doing 2x’s a day to help keep those places clutter free!

(These next statements are my personal opinions and views and are not affiliated with Flylady.net)

Are there “hot spots” in your life? Places where the worlds clutter have taken over? Kenny and I have been doing some purging lately of the different things we own. In January we took down our Christmas tree and I decided I wanted to rearrange the living room… again :) –its a woman’s prerogative isn’t it?- As we were doing so we decided to go through our movie collection and pare down a little. That was probably one of the best things we’ve done yet. As we were paring down a little purging went on as well. We decided that if the movie wasn’t fit to watch with our teenagers then it had to go! I’m not telling you all this to say “Oh look at me!” this has been a long process of growing for both Kenny and I and its proof of God’s conviction in our lives.  We’ve decided that if God speaks to one of us about something we need to get out of our lives then we’ll support each other and do it. If there is something that will hinder our ministry or keep us from a relationship with the Lord then it has no room in our home. I’m not sure about Kenny but this has been really hard for me because I like to hang on to things and I find it hard to throw away stuff, but at the same time I know we’re doing right because there is no regret when we do get rid of something that is slowing us down.

So now how about you? Are there hot spots in your life? Clutter that moved in and taken over? Take some time to thing about what is holding you back from living a spiritually clean life and ask the Lord to give you what you need to clear that stuff out of the way. I promise you won’t regret it or even miss the mess!

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 5

What we’re doing so far:

• Getting Dressed to lace up shoes
• Keeping our sink shining
• Reading Flylady’s messages
• Looking at our posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom

Day 5 – Turn Negative Thoughts Around

Take any negative thoughts about getting your house clean and turn them around into a “You can” attitude. You may be thinking “this is dumb” or “I can’t do this” maybe your thinking that you’ll never make it all the way through the 31 days – may I remind you that this is my 3rd time doing this and each time I’ve learned valuable lessons and gotten a little farther each time. So its definitely worth the effort. Whatever it is that your thinking, negativity will never get us anywhere. The Baby Step for today is to write those negative thoughts down and turn them into something positive – think optimistically, glass half-full sort of thing!

(These next statements are my own opinion and not affiliated with Flylady.net)

There are times in our Christian walk when the devil tries to tell us that we can’t do it, we’ll never amount to much for God so we should just give up. Let me just say that this way of thinking is STINKIN’ THINKIN’! And, for the record its just what the devil wants us to do, to give up because if we’re not doing anything for Christ then he wins… that’s not a good thing! As Christians we’re not supposed to rely on our own power to do things for Christ anyways. The Bible says;

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Philippians 4:13

That “through Christ” means through His power, His strength, not mine. This is is such a familiar verse but it is so true. when we rely on God, He, in return, gives the strength to do and go and serve Him. When Satan comes around and tries to tempt you with stinkin’ thinkin’ send him running with verses from God’s Word. Our baby step for today says we should write down our negative thoughts and turn them around to something positive, a good idea might be to write down those stinkin’ thinkin’ moments and then write down scripture to combat them. Christ used scripture in Matthew 4 to combat Satan when he came three different times to tempt Him. I have written in my Bible that “God’s Word is the greatest tool to fight the devil.” If Christ used it then so should we! Fight off that Stinkin’ Thinkin’ and do something for the Lord today!

What do you do to fight off Negative (stinkin’ thinkin”) thoughts?

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 4

So far this is what I’m doing:

Read your Bible

Shine your sink

Get dressed to shoes

Read Flylady messages

Day 4 – Put Sticky notes up in your bathroom and kitchen to remind you of what you are doing.

These sticky notes are the beginning of your Control Journal (a journal for you to make and use to keep your house running smoothly). They will serve as reminders of the habits we are trying to establish. I showed you my sticky notes in the kitchen on Wednesday. Here is my bathroom sticky note.

Its nothing fancy but it does what I need it to. I have it there on the mirror next to my “TO DO LIST” notepad :) that way I’m always sure to take a look see!

(These next statements are my own personal opinion and not affiliated with Flylady.net)

There are many times when we need to remember things. You’ve heard the phrase “If you don’t learn from history your bound to repeat it.” This is also true of our mistakes, in RU we tell the students to remember where they came from but more importantly what God has done for them so they, hopefully, will not repeat the same mistakes again. This is good advice for all of us! I remember as a 16 year old girl knowing that I was a sinner and I could not do anything that would gain entrance to heaven on my own. I also remember asking God to forgive my sins and make me clean. Salvation is God’s mercy and grace, it was given to me even though he did not have to give it and though I did nothing to deserve it. To remember this event in my life I have the date and location of my salvation written in the fly leaf of my Bible along side many other life changing decisions I have made.

Just like posting our flylady reminders where we can see what habits we’re trying to learn we need to write down “reminders” of what God has done in our life and what He is teaching us. There have been many times that I had forgotten something God spoke to me about only to see it written down in a journal or in my Bible.

Don’t forget to look at these written down reminders and take some time to remember what God has done in your life.

Just a side note: Because Sunday’s are such busy days for us I will not be adding another Baby Step tomorrow, hence I won’t be blogging about one either. I will, however, still be practicing the Baby Steps we have already started. I hope you all will be attending a local church tomorrow where you can hear God’s word preached. If you’ve never been or maybe its been a long time hopefully you’ll consider making tomorrow your first day! God Bless.

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 3

So sorry I’m getting this out so late in the day. We’ve just been having a lazy, sleep-in and relax sort of day and I just really didn’t feel like getting online earlier. But now down to business: Here is what we are already doing:

Read your Bible each morning.

Shine you sink

Get dressed to shoes

Day 3 – Read Flylady Messages

Flylady has a group on Big Tent that you can access here: Big Tent Group. On this webpage you can read the Flylady news, get the different control journals (we’ll learn more about those later) and receive messages from the Flylady crew along with several other things. I personally just signed up for the daily email that has testimonials and instructions for the day in them. I have heard from different people who used to do the flylady system that they were bombarded by emails several times a day. Well, thanks to “Big Tent,” that is no longer the case just one email a day and that’s it!

I had a little bit of a hard time putting a spiritual application on this step but then I realized that the emails or the Flylady group have different helps to keep you motivated, tips for cleaning and even things to aid in scheduling. Its all good solid reading material. I know for me personally, when I go to my Bible, there are things that I don’t quite understand so I use a study guide, when I need guidance in a certain area of my walk with God I find a book, written by an author I know and trust, to give me another view or helpful thoughts on that subject. Obviously I think the Bible is the most important book there is out there to read and should be given first priority over anything else we could read but we can also benefit greatly from another persons wisdom.

So today I wanted to recommend a couple things to you and would love it for each of you to list in the comment section any recommendations that you would like.

Life Management for Busy Women – Living Out God’s Plan with Passion & Purpose

By Elizabeth George

 

This is the book I am currently reading and it has been very enjoyable and thought provoking. I like this book not because its a “self help” book but because she starts out by showing you that you need to develop a habit of being in God’s word before you can take care of the rest of your busy life. One of my favorite quotes from this book is from the first chapter:

“So, do you need wisdom? You’ll find it in the Bible. Do you need encouragement? It, too, lies on the sacred pages of Scripture. Do you need strength? Just reading God’s Word infuses you with strength – His Strength – for today and hope – His Hope – for tomorrow. Just pause, pick up your cherished volume of the Bible, and do the best thing you can do with your time – behold the Word of the Lord!”

 

Grace for the Good Girl – Letting go of the try-hard life

By Emily P. Freeman

I have not personally read this book but it has recieved great reviews from some friends of mine.

Holly at Moments On Our Journey wrote a review on this book that really hit home to me back in September that made me really want this book!

More recently Nicole, at A Living Sacrifice wrote  an update on her family and a snip-it about some books she’s been reading, Grace for the Good Girl being one of them :)

I had asked for this book as a Christmas present but I guess I just need to get online and buy this book for myself!

Revive Our Hearts

My last recommendation is something that my Sister-in-law, Andrea and my Mom-in-law, Sherry, do (at least I think they still do this) That is to listen to “Revive Our Hearts” radio. This is a women’s ministry that, I believe, was started by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. She teaches on different topics throughout the year to women all over the world. I don’t follow the daily radio/podcast things but I do go back in the archives of their lessons and read the Proverbs 31: Counter-Cultural Woman series, along with that I take the Proverbs 31 challenge to read the chapter of Proverbs 31 everyday for 31 days and see what God shows me. I did this the month before Kenny and I got married and plan to do it again before our anniversary every year, its just that good!

So how about you? Any books, study guides, or authors you’d like to recommend to others for spiritual growth? Please feel free to leave a comment telling me about each one :)

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 2

This is what we’re already doing:

Read your Bible each morning

Shine your sink

Day 2 – Get Dressed to Lace-up Shoes

Baby Steps - Day 2

For this baby step we not only need to get dressed all the way to shoes but also fixing your hair and doing your make-up. My Mom is probably one of the best examples I know for this, whether she is going to work, the grocery store or just staying home to clean house she always got fully dressed with her hair and make-up fixed. It was ingrained in me growing up and I am thankful for it now. You might ask, Why on earth do I need to get dressed all the way to wearing shoes!?!?!? especially if your plans are just to stay home and clean or do yard work. My experience as a Pastor’s wife is that I sometimes have little warning that someone is coming over or if Kenny needs me to go somewhere with him. Don’t get me wrong, Kenny does his best to let me know ahead of time but things happen and if I’m not ready when he calls I either scramble around the house trying desperately to get ready and end up stressed or I’m just plain out embarrassed that I was caught with my guard down. Not only this but getting dressed to shoes mentally prepares me for my day. I’m now ready to take on whatever I have planned or whatever made its way into my plans.

There are many different avenues I could go with this baby step in a spiritual sense, and I really had a hard time choosing which path to take. I finally decided to take the most basic idea because, after all, these are baby steps :) The idea I’d like to talk about here is to be prepared. In Ephesians 6:11 we read about putting on the armor of God:

“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

I have a note in my Bible that says; “Some Christians only put on the helmet of Salvation for protection and forget the rest of their armor – if you are going to be a solider for Christ you need to come fully prepared.” You can read about each piece of armor we as Christians are to wear in Ephesians 6:11-17. My point is that each and every day we as Christians face the attacks of the devil, we deal with the lures of this sinful world and the only way we are able to stand against those attacks is to be prepared to combat them with scripture.

Another area we are to be prepared in is prepared to go. I have some friends who are currently serving as missionaries on the foreign field. I don’t know if they always knew that they would be missionaries some day or not, but when they were first married they decided that they would live their lives in such a way that when God called them to do something there would be nothing holding them back or hindering them from answering the call. They were determined to live debt-free, simple lives (not depriving themselves) so that they would always be prepared for when God said go.

I am by no means trying to belittle anyone that doesn’t live like these people did, and I’m not saying that everyone will be called to the mission field or to full time Christian service. What I am trying to do is get you to see that God has something for each one of His children to do and we need to be ready, be prepared. If God wants you to hand a track to someone in the grocery store, are you prepared? What about teaching a Sunday School class? Or if someone starts asking you questions about Salvation, are you prepared to show them the way?

If your not prepared in these two areas maybe you should spend more time in God’s Word and ask Him to help you with this. Another good resource is to ask a more mature Christian in your church to help you. Either way our preparation comes from God’s Word, not simply reading what it has to say but also applying it to our lives.

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only…” James 1:22a

Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 1

Today is the official, I’m starting Flylady, Day 1.

Don’t forget to read your Bible this morning – it was our first official habit to start this month off right!

Day 1 – Shine Your Sink

31 Beginner Baby Steps

This task is a simple thing to do each day that makes your whole kitchen look better (even though the rest of the kitchen might not be completely clean). You want to clean your kitchen sink until it shines, I’ve done the initial cleaning process to shine my sink before so I just touched up some areas, mainly around the base of the faucet, that needed it but if you’d like to see the Flylady way of shining your sink, which is very effective and low cost efficient, you can check that out here:

Flying Lesson on How to Shine Your Sink

Like I said earlier I did a little bit of scrubbing with my potato scrubber, or you can use a toothbrush (just not one that someone in your household is currently using). Wiped it down with soap and water followed by a spray of Windex and a swish-swish with a dry towel and wha’dya get?

Ta da!!!!!

 

And see, your so blinded by the shine coming off of my sink that you don’t even notice the flour on the counter or that I haven’t wiped underneath my canisters yet (shhh don’t tell my mom!)

One thing that is not mentioned on this first step, but is mentioned later, is to place a sticky note above your sink reminding you to shine your sink. Because we have teenagers coming through our house on a regular bases, and because I didn’t want to have to tell each one of them when they come over what to do, my sticky note has “directions” on it. Here' is what it says:

Shine The Sink!

*Put dirty dishes straight into the dishwasher.

*Wash and put away dishes after each meal (the ones that don’t go in the dishwasher).

*Dry sink after using.

*Start dishwasher before bed & unload it first thing in the morning.

Those sound like a lot of rules but when everyone does those 4 things it keeps the kitchen looking nice without me having to do everything.

(Once again these next statements and views are my own and not affiliated with Flylady.net)

I told you yesterday that, as I was going through these baby steps before, I started realizing how cleaning my house has application to cleaning my heart and preparing myself to be used of God. Today’s baby step was to shine my sink and although the thought of shining a sink may not ring any spiritual bells the fact that I had to clean my sink out so it could be used does. God wants to use us in His master plan, He didn’t send His Son to die for our sins just so we could return to those same sins. No, He emptied us of sin so He could fill us with Him, with His Holy Spirit, so He could use us to glorify His name.

Our church has been praying for a lady, for almost a year now, to get saved. She has been asking questions and her son had been pleading with her to come to church and finally this past Sunday she came and accepted Christ as her personal Savior. I was playing the piano for the invitation and had the front row seat. Have you ever seen someone get saved? Do you know the joyful glow that comes over their face when it happens? Well she had it right away and God wants us to keep that joyful glow by keeping our lives free from sin and the dirt of this world. Matthew 5:14-16 says,

“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.  Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.  Let our light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

That joyful glow I mentioned before IS our light! People should be able to look at us and know something is different. These verses also tell us that we are the light in this dark and dirty, sin-filled world and not to hide that light.

Lastly, in order to keep that light shining through my life I have to daily clean out the old sin that tries to cover it. One of the instructions for shining my sink was to daily wash the dishes and daily wipe the sink out. Our heart is the same way we need to daily ask for forgiveness of sins and daily be in the Word and daily be striving to be more like Christ.

When others look at your life do they see a shining testimony of what God is doing through you or do they see a dirty un-used sink?