TAKING OUT THE DEAD

Last night and this morning before it got COLD, I raked and mowed our yard and bagged the dead leaves -- man our yard has never looked this good since we moved in. It was amazing that we bagged over 20 bags of dead leaves. I know some of you have 200 bags of leaves, but it made me question whether or not it was worth it. Why bother taking out the dead leaves when 12 months from now a whole new crop of dead stuff would be there. The reasons I could think of to remove the dead leaves was
1) It makes things look good and that I am not a lazy slacker to my neighbors
2) Our kids like to play in leaves for about a month and then they probably would hate it -- so practically speaking if we want to use our yard we need them off
3) If they didn't go the grass would die
4) Eventually the leaves would compost and begin to stink on a nice warm summer day
5) I am doing my best to keep the economy going by buying stupid recycling bags :)

Why do we need as people to look at our lives and take out the dead stuff, the stuff that makes us not look good, or take away our potential, or cause us to smell? We need take the stuff out of our lives that is dead, that is holding us back because we need to imagine again what it means to live fully and for God. We need to get the dead stuff out of our lives so that we can move forward and become more fully into what God has planned for us. Yes taking out the dead parts of our lives is NO fun, it is hard work, it even stinks every once in awhile, but we need to do it. I need to take a look at what I watch on TV, how I spend my free time, and how I spend time with my family and take out the dead stuff that is getting in my way. Lets all take a look and clean out some dead stuff this week.