What's Clogging up your drain?

As I stand there brushing my teeth this morning, I notice that the sink just keeps getting fuller and fuller. So, I plunge my hand down through some dirty spit water to grab the pluggy sink thing and pull it out. Apparently, I have not been diligent about cleaning this thing because it had about a million of my long brown hairs attached to it.

So it seems, that sometimes we just have a bunch of icky goo clogging us up. Icky goo can really take on any form; in fact it might not even look so icky at first. It can be pride, anxious thoughts, past history, overwhelming feelings, selfishness, needs of approval, drugs or alcohol, sexual addiction, codependency, and on and on and on. And of course any one of these things by themselves may not totally clog up our sink, but throw a few together, or even multiple strands of just one, and before you know it you’ve got a big wad of stuff clogging up that drain.

So there we are, the faucet is on, we are going to church, we are reading our bible, we have positive Christian friends in our lives, we are praying, the faucet is on to fill us up, yet our drain is clogged! Every thing that is trying to come in either never makes it past the surface or gets filtered through all of our ickyness and comes into us all kinds of tainted and nasty.

So what do we do then? We gotta pull that icky nasty mess out into the light and clean that sucker off. That means, dare I say it, EXPOSURE of our mess. We must bring it out into the light for God to heal, ask for forgiveness from him and others, and be open to others so that they can help us. Now if you tend to be perfectionistic like me, this can be very painful. Admitting that there is a mess below the surface may be excruciating, but it is necessary lest we want to remain in bondage and all clogged up. This clogging may have functioned as self-protection at one time in our lives, but now it just leaves us swimming in a sea of loneliness and starvation.

And I know that sometimes we can have so much clogging our drain that it really seems overwhelming. Sometimes I just get tired and worn out, and falling back into old habits seems so much easier. But, my sister, each and every one of us was created for a purpose. No matter how worthless and shallow you may feel, those feelings are not from God, he loves you so much and longs for you to invite him in to unclog your life so that he can fill you up with his love. Let him do what only he can do, let him be your Drano, and when the flood of living water comes down, it is so good. He is so good.

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
1The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
16He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
17"I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
19"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
25The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."