PART II

This month, our newsletter was sent in two parts.  This newsletter completes the series.

A Mouse in the House
A look at Self-Examination

Recently, my wife and I experienced something new in our lives. A family of rodents had decided to take up residence in our home. Though this is not an uncommon story, especially in big cities, it took us by surprise. We had never dealt with anything like this before. It was like our home had been violated.

My wife began the task of deep cleaning every part of the house in search of anything that might have been corrupted by their presence. She sorted through every item in the pantry examining every box. She re-washed dishes, scrubbed floors, walls, counters, cabinets and cupboards. If there was any chance that it had been touched, it was either cleaned or discarded. Nothing was going to contaminate what she was going to feed her family.

My daunting task was to hunt these intruders to extinction. I began with traps I purchased. I would set the traps, and wait for these intruders to be caught. When night after night they went without effect, I began to take a more active role.

At night, I would sit in the doorway of the kitchen and stare at the floor, searching every crevice or hole. As my eyes would roam the kitchen, my ears would be intensely listening for any out-of-place sound. At the first sign of action, every nerve would tighten, and I would wait in full readiness to pounce.

On successive nights, one-by-one they fell at my hand. I became adept at chasing them into a trap I had set for them. In their fear of me, they would race into perceived safety, my trap waiting for them instead.

My determination and dedication to the extermination of these vermin was a solid resolve for several reasons. The largest was the intense protection I felt for my family. I could not and would not allow one of these things to touch, or harm my family in any way. The thought that they could be in the same room with my children would drive sleep from my eyes, night after night.

When exhaustion would finally overtake me, I would lie in bed, my ears still listening, and often waking me at the slightest creak or groan in the house. As the battle wore on, even my dreams would be assailed by visions of these intruders. My only real rest coming when my wife was awake. I could rest knowing that she continued the vigil.

It has been through this experience that I began to see correlations between the natural and the spirit. Thoughts would come to me from conversations with others about our battles, and revelations I received in the stillness of the night.

Rodents seek out dark places to hide, cracks and crevices too small for humans to reach. They scurry out only when need requires. Food, water and provision the only reason to leave the safety of their hole. They can live in our homes without our knowledge for weeks or months. It is only when they grow or multiply that they can no longer hide their presence.

It is when their presence is discovered that we make our decisions. Will we combat them, and if so, how? It was surprising to me when I heard how some people consider a mouse an acceptable part of home life. “He’s cute,” or “He’s just trying to stay warm from the cold,” they would say.

Others have no idea if one is in their home or not. They have determined to invoke precautions to prevent being disturbed by sounds of an intruder. Music, television or even a loud fan make acceptable camouflage to cover the sounds of the intruder in their home. Ignorant bliss allows for un-interrupted sleep. All the while, the intruder corrupts the integrity of their home.

It has been these things and others that have made me look at my spiritual home. What habits and behaviors have I allowed to live in the dark recesses of my life? What is hiding in those areas of my life that are difficult for a human hand to reach?

I want to share a few keys that I have rediscovered about self-examination through these experiences and encourage you to examine your spiritual home, this earthly body, to insure no corruptive force is gnawing away at your structural integrity.

To begin, we must Acknowledge that there ARE holes in our lives. I was surprised to realize how many holes and cracks and crevices were in my home. There were things that I had looked at every day, not realizing that behind that book case, beneath that shelf or under that dresser lurked hidden entrances. It wasn’t until I realized there must be an entrance and began actively searching that I moved things to reveal the holes in my home.

John writes in 1 John 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Sin, in simplest definition, means anything short of perfection. If we believe that there is nothing in us short of perfection, then we are deceiving ourselves. We have covered our holes with book cases, and cabinets. We block the holes from view and pretend they don’t exist, but because we did not seal the entrance the enemy can use it to reach us.

Once we admit that there are holes in our lives, the next task is to Ask God to reveal the holes to us. We need God’s help to shine the light of His word into the dark corners of our lives, to reveal the cracks and crevices we never knew existed. We need him to tell us which book case to look behind, and which obstacles we have allowed to block our view.

Most often the holes are hidden by deceptive covers of our own creation. Out of laziness, or unwillingness to give up something or someone, we erect facades to cover the holes. We have pretended that God is “Okay with this or that,” simply because He hasn’t mentioned it to us in a while. The entire time, God has waited, knowing that if we didn’t heed His warning, the enemy would slip in through that hole and we would regret not sealing it when we had the chance.

For God to reveal the holes in our lives, we must study God’s word with an inward eye. As we read each verse, we must search out not how this verse judges others, but instead how it judges and applies to us. James writes in James 1:23-25, we must look fully into the perfect word of God, and in its reflection see our every zit, blemish, scratch and scar. We must see ourselves compared to God’s perfection. We cannot look into the carnival funhouse mirrors of popular opinion and friendly compliment. These only work to make a short man tall, and a fat man thin. We need to see ourselves for the chubby, un-exercised people we really are.

Thirdly, once we see the holes, we must Fight with determination to correct the problems. This requires us to change our routines and habits. When my wife and I discovered the rodents in our home, we could no longer afford to be lazy. We could no longer leave our bread on the counter. It had to be placed in a container to protect it. We had to make sure that the kitchen was spotless every night. No longer could I put off washing the dishes until morning simply because I was tired.

We also had to begin construction around the house. We had to purchase wood and nails, caulk and spackle. We had to begin the process of fixing the cracks, filling the holes and repairing the damage. We had to insure that we didn’t just hide them from our sight, but that the hole was filled and solid.

If the crack in our life is dishonesty, we must fill the hole with honesty. If our fault is bursts of anger, then we must fill the hole with self-control. If we wrestle with fiscal instability, we must seek out Godly counsel and guidance. Whatever the weakness, we must seek out God’s solution, and then consistently maintain to insure the hole never ruptures or reopens.

Lastly, we must Examine the things that were affected by our weakness and repair them as well. When my wife discovered the first evidences of the intruder, she searched through every item in our pantry. She cleaned the cabinets, and scoured the kitchen. She could not afford for any contamination to spread to her family through the flour she used or the cereal they ate.

We must realize that although we may not have seen the holes in our lives, those holes could have been affecting others that we came in contact with. The bread of life we tried to share with co-workers, friends or family was tainted by the flour that was touched by our failure.

By going to those people, confessing our sins and asking forgiveness (James 5:16) we bring glory to God. People can see that there is a real God who is doing a real work in our imperfect lives. They are then able to see that though our imperfection may have bothered, or turned them away, that God is still doing a work in us. There is still hope for us, and therefore still hope for them. If our God can fix such deeply rooted problems in us, then they too can be healed.

Our greatest testimony should never be that God saved us when we were born again years ago, but instead our testimony should be that He has never stopped saving us. Daily, he has shown us a hole that we can patch, an improvement to be made, and a testimony to be shared of how God is alive and living in us.

If you want your life to have real effect on others, if you want a more powerful anointing, if you desire to see God move through you and change your world, then we must continue to examine our lives. We must continue to set the traps that capture and kill those thoughts that are not of God, and check back on old holes to be sure that they have not fallen into disrepair. We must daily examine our lives, and daily allow God to change us from glory to glory.

From one homeowner to another, happy hunting.

Kenneth Swett

This email was sent to you because you have subscribed to the Kenneth Swett Ministries Newsletter.  We grant you full permission to forward this newsletter to anyone you feel could benefit from its content.  If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, please send an email to cancelnewsletter@kenswett.com.  In the body of your email, please state the email address you would like removed from our mailing list.