Several years ago I was visiting in the home of a very dignified and refined and what I would call a southern steel magnolia woman. Her home was beautiful. There was nothing out of place. I was commenting on her home and how perfectly ordered and elegant it was, and she said, “Tim, don’t forget I’m only showing you the rooms I want you see. I have a room that I keep locked. No one is permitted in. It is in a dreadful state of chaos. It’s my junk room.” Sometimes we have places in our heart and lives that are junk rooms and we don’t let anyone in. There are hurts, fears, secret sins, and wounds that we lock away. It tends to be the stuff that we hide, the stuff we bury and lock away that creates most of our stress and conflict and blocks God’s power from healing and helping us. One of the most honest prayers you can pray is Psalm 139: 23-24, “Search me and know me, O God, and if there is anything offensive in me, lead me in the way everlasting.” It is only when we expose our darkest and messiest places to God that we can find his help, His healing, His redeeming, and his forgiving life-changing power. I hope you will open your soul to God today. Invite God into the depths of your life. When you come honestly before God, you find yourself placed in the stream of God’s life-changing power.
– Dr. Tim Thompson