This past week at our staff retreat God really opened my eyes. I was challenged to ask God to reveal the “dark closets” in my life. As I sat and thought through the “rooms” in my life I began to evaluate whether or not God had complete control over every area of my life. I sat and thought yet nothing came to my mind. That scared my because I knew there had to be SOMETHING in my life that was not completely turned over to God, yet I could not think of anything. Right before we began to pray and end our evening session I suddenly had a thought pop into my mind. I quickly got a pen and wrote it down on my hand. I was not sure what the words I wrote down really totally meant. They did not seem like things that counted as “dark closet” stuff. It was not even something I had been consciously aware of, yet as soon as I began to think through it all and began to dig deep the more “junk came out of the room” and the more I realized the burden I had been carrying. God had shown me an area of my life that had held me in bondage for years!

I talked with my small group that night about what God had shown me and it seemed like this heavy weight was lifted from me as I cried, talked, and let them pray over me. TreeHouse operates under a Grace-based theology so it was very encouraging and comforting to know that I could share things about my life that might turn some people off without the fear of that actually happening.

God sometimes reveals Himself to me in emotional ways (music, prayer, worship, a sunset, nature) but this past week God choose to show Himself to me by setting me free. God is a God of freedom and I am free from a weight that unconsciously held me back from experiencing true freedom.

What “junk” holding you back from experiencing true freedom? As a Christian, freedom is something we should experience because we have the Holy Spirit in our lives. II Corinthians 3:17-18 say “For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (NLT) I am so thankful for the freedom we have in Christ.

I want to encourage and challenge you to look into your life and ask God to show you the places in your life where you still have “dark closets” in your life. Ask Him to release you to be free from the bondage you live in. God is faithful and full of grace so it is comforting to know that He will always love us. He loves us where we ARE but is not content with us staying where we’re AT. Pursue Him. Run after Him. Open up to Him and you’ll experience the same freedom I have. Let God mold you like a potter molds the clay. We are His workmanship.