Taken to the Wood Shed by God

Today’s post is written my Rese Moore. Rese will join the Laced with Grace team as a regular contributor starting in the month of July 2013; we are very excited!!! To find out more about Rese, you can check out her personal blog “Rese’s Pieces”. Rese is currently serving as the Women’s Ministries Director at the West Florida District Assemblies of God.

I remember many times during my childhood of hearing people say that their parents took them to the wood shed. Children today would want to know what in the world that meant. What was at the wood shed? Did they get a toy or something? But as many of you know it wasn’t a pleasant experience. It wasn’t to have fun or get something great. It was a time when discipline was needed, punishment came, and you were put back on the straight and narrow. I was born into a family of 6 children and I was the baby of those 6. I learned from the mistakes of my older siblings of what I should and should not do. I only remember getting one spanking in my early years, but that was enough. I didn’t have to literally go to the wood shed, but the result was the same. I learned a lot from that one time of chastening.

God had been dealing with my heart for a while about my lack of personal time with Him. I was staying so busy doing what I thought I was supposed to do. I was doing good things, important things, ministry things, Martha things if you would. But the other night sitting in church as a good preacher’s wife listening to my husband preach I felt God take my hand and lead me to the wood shed. As I saw the verse I have read many times in Matthew 21:13 where Jesus tears up the money changers tables and then tell them: It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

We know that He was speaking of the temple during that time as His house being the house of prayer, but we know that I Corinthians 6:19 says that we are all the temple of God. So knowing what the scripture says, we know that Jesus is speaking to us that our temple (our lives) is to be the house prayer. And He began to break that down to me a little closer to home and more personally. While we were at the wood shed He said, It is written! Where is it written? Who wrote it? God himself wrote it and requires it! What is it He said? He said, My house shall be called a house a prayer. That is His plan, His desire, His purpose for our lives. It is WRITTEN! Then He said, “BUT YOU HAVE MADE IT!” What have I made? What have I done? It didn’t just happen as we would think that it would. No one else did it. But I did it. I made His house a den of thieves. I made my life a place where anything and everything could come in and steal my time of prayer. My house (temple) was no longer a place of prayer, but instead the thieves of busyness, responsibilities, jobs, tiredness, lack of discipline, imbalance of priorities, and other things had come into my temple and taken the place of prayer. And what had I done? I had made it a den for them to abide there. A place where they were okay to come in and set up house and stay. When my life was so full of these thieves, there was no place left for prayer. There is no time left for that intimate time with the one who loved me enough to die for me.

Why was it that I was finding my joy lacking? Because the thief of worry and doubt had come in and taken the place of my prayer life that brought joy. Why was discouragement and weariness beginning to settle in my spirit? Because those thieves had found a hiding place in my spirit that was left vacant from my lack of prayer. So God began to show me that I had made it that den of thieves and I was the only one who could tear up house. I had to have a house cleaning, clean out the den, and run the thieves off.

The wonderful thing is that when I began to clean house, the Holy Spirit would bring the adrenaline to my life to empower me to do it. Is it easy? No, it is a hard thing to do when you realize you have developed a habit of not taking the time we need to in His presence and making sure our temple is what He wrote that it would be. Will He help us? Yes, when He sees we are desiring to get back to what He wants us to be, He will help us. Is it worth it? Yes, yes, a million times yes! Because it is in those times of prayer that we find everything we need, we become more like Him, and He ministers to us and meets our needs. It is so important that we find our time is better spent doing the Mary things than He will make more time to do the Martha things.

I didn’t like getting spanked as a child, and the funny thing is I haven’t changed much. I still don’t like having to be chastened, but I welcome God at any time to take me to the Wood Shed. Take my hand, Lord, and do what is needed to help put me back on the right path and make me the person you want me to be.

I did notice in the next scripture that after the temple had been cleansed then Jesus could heal the sick and lame and blind. The same is with us, when we allow Him to help us cleanse our temples of things that do not belong there and get things in the proper order, then He can begin to do miracles in and through our lives. Lord, cleanse me, purge me, make me what you want me to be.

Blessings,
Rese

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