Take Inventory

2022 is the Year of Freedom! If you are new on this journey, welcome, and please be sure you go back and read Year of Freedom; this is where the journey began. If you've been on this journey, pat yourself on the back and do a little dance! We are nine weeks in, and you've been putting in the effort and intentionally freeing yourself from the things holding you back from walking boldly into your purpose as the woman God created you to be.  

Get Your House in Order

This week it's time to do some housekeeping and take inventory of your personal life. Who are the people or things in your life that no longer serve the journey God has you on and where He wants to take you?

In John 15, Jesus compares our relationship with Him to fruit and their relationship to the vine of their respective tree. He says that just like no branch can bear fruit by itself, we can not bear fruit unless we remain in Him. He also says that he prunes every branch that does not bear fruit so that it will be fruitful. 

In gardening, pruning is the removal of parts of a plant or vine that are not necessary to growth or production, are no longer visually pleasing, or are harmful to the health or development of the plant. 

What does this mean for us spiritually? God needs to remove things from our lives, stunting our growth or having the potential to be dangerous to us and the pursuit of our purpose.

Distractions

Simply put, God has to get rid of the distractions in our lives, whether temporarily or permanently. As Dr. Tony Evans writes in his book Kingdom Woman, distractions are not always bad things either. Sometimes they are good things that take us away from better things. 

Think about the story of Mary and Martha in the bible (Luke 10: 38-42). Marth was distracted by cooking for Jesus (a good thing) and missed spending quality time with Him (a better thing) with her sister Mary. We all have responsibilities that we prioritize daily and things that God has blessed us with (a family, for example) that come with their set of responsibilities. But we cannot allow these things to distract us from the most important thing, God and cultivating our relationship with Him. 

When the good things of life start to distract us, all we have to do is talk to God about it and ask for help with prioritizing and balancing.  It's never a matter of not having enough time but how we choose to spend our time.

Now, let's talk about the bad distractions. There are things and people in our lives that are not positive influences. And I could write out a list of what those things could be, but the truth of the matter is that you most likely already know. It's not hard to identify what or who is keeping us from pursuing God and living a purposeful life. The difficulty is accepting that those things or people need to be pruned from our lives. Without pruning, you stop producing fruit. Essentially you become stagnant and trapped (enslaved) by the 'weeds.'

Pruning can be an uncomfortable process, but it is necessary, and the fruit that your life will produce as a result of the pruning is vital to your freedom. 

Ask God to help you release and surrender the things that He needs to prune in your life. And ask that He reveal any hidden distractions you are unaware of or are in denial about. 

Journal prompt: Create two columns or sections in your journal and title them "Reprioritize" and "Prune." Under the section labeled "Reprioritize," list out the good distractions that you've been allowing to take you away from your time with God. Under "Pruning," list out all the bad distractions that are competing with God and have the potential to stop where He wants to take you. Commit each list to God in prayer and ask for what you need in helping to reprioritize or surrender so He can prune.

What’s Next

I really want to hear from you. Let me know in the comments below something good that has been distracting you from spending time with God.