Clearing out broken limbs

I was driving past a wooded section of town this week and I noticed all the broken limbs and downed trees from an ice storm we had this winter. Slowly but surely, city workers are clearing out the broken limbs. Last night I thought about how my life sometimes resembles that wooded area with broken limbs and downed trees. At times, the storms of life leave damage behind. Occasionally I allow garbage to clutter up the area. And other times, my own carelessness messes things up.

But regardless of the cause, I need to take a good, hard, honest look at myself on a regular basis to see what needs to be cleaned out. And then I need to do the hard, and sometimes painful work of clearing out all that trash.

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said:
“Wake up, sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.” (Ephesians 5:8-14)