In the pipeline?

Well, here we are in September again.  The summer is over (as marked by the torrential rain today), and life resumes a more normal pattern for many of us.  

In our part of the country, there has been a bit of a drought through the summer, and as a consequence, our home town and other places have been put on a hosepipe ban, and the local water company has been quick to encourage everyone to conserve water where possible. It's been a little frustrating at times. Then, this morning, a friend pointed out that, on the news there were reports of three or four burst pipes in an area close to where we live that were causing chaos.

This got me thinking about my spiritual walk.  My husband always says my brain works with weird connections, but hear me out.  The water company has been quick to try and get us to do something to solve the problem, while not actually spending the money to repair or replace old pipework, leading to many leaks and burst pipes.  The problem is internal as much as it is due to the lack of rain (I know some of you think that it always rains in the UK, but it doesn't 😄).  

Sometimes we are like that; we want God to do something, but we aren't maintaining or replacing old pipes.  The truth is we need to look for those 'old pipes' (old ways of doing things, or old belief systems) and take them out and replace them with new ones (God's truth), or we need to think about ones that we haven't checked in on in a while and make sure they are flowing well. 

We are told to guard our heart, because from it flow the issues of life.

Proverbs 4:23 (AMP)
Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.

It is up to us to be ready to recognise when that flow isn't healthy or godly.

Now I can already hear some of you saying, "You're suggesting it's all about OUR works". I've noticed that Christian's often confuse discipline for works.  These are two separate things.  Paul compares us to athletes in training.  

1 Corinthians 9:25 (NLT)
All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.

No one would just rock up to compete in a marathon without having considered their diet or building up runs towards that competitive distance.  Likewise, we should employ spiritual training that paves the way for us to experience and live the way God wants us to.

All the way through the Bible, we are called to meditate on God's word (Psalms 1:2, Rom 5:4, Ps 119:105 for example), to worship (Ps 150:6, Jer 20:13, Ps 136:1, Ps 104:53, Eph 5:19 - I could go on but you get the jist) to pray  (1 John 5:14, Col4:2, and Phil 4:6-7 for starters) and to listen for the Spirit's leading (Jer 33:3, John 10:27 and Psalm 32:8 etc) .   When we exercise our faith in these ways, it is like we are opening the opportunity for God to show us which pipes are old and useless, which pipes are in need of some attention and which ones are flowing as they should.

So today, my challenge to you is: what's in your pipeline?  What areas do you sense there is a good flow, spiritually speaking?  What areas are you feeling drawn towards checking in on and revisiting (maybe you've noticed that your body is experiencing more sickness than you did when you first learned about healing or something like that).  Ask the Holy Spirit to show you any old pipes that need to be completely replaced so that his wisdom, grace, provision and love can flow to you without hindrance.