The refrigerator purge
"You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips." (NIV) Colossians 3:7-8
Bible reading: Colossians 3:12-14
Recently I had to clean out my refrigerator! I am sure many of you know what that is like and have had to do it many times as well. But this last time that I had to clean it out I was struck with the thought that God wants us to do a cleaning of our hearts and minds.
Just as we have to remove the “science experiments” that once were leftover meals, and the expired food, and the spoiled dairy products, and the withered and dried remnants of untouched fruit from our refrigerators from time to time, so God wants us to clean out anger (a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility), rage (extreme uncontrollable, violent anger), malice (ill will towards others), slander (to make false and damaging accusations about someone), and filthy language (offensive, vile, or objectionable) from our lives. And as we actively, consistently work to clean these from our lives, just as with our refrigerators, there is space available to be filled.
And so, just as we would put new, fresh fruits, dairy products, and other foods into our clean refrigerators, we are to fill the spaces in our hearts and minds with compassion (a feeling of wanting to help someone who is sick, hungry, or in trouble), kindness (being friendly, helpful, and considerate), humility (the quality or state of not thinking you are better than other people), gentleness (being mild and soft not harsh or severe), and patience (the ability to wait something out or endure something tedious without getting riled up). I find it interesting that these verses list as many negative traits that we are to rid ourselves of as positive qualities that we are to put in.
And as we are working on our personal heart and mind cleanup we are to bear with each other and forgive each other, and approach people and situations with love as that helps to keep everything working together. After all, just as we can neglect our clean refrigerators and leave things to spoil and get too old in them, so too the negative traits try to sneak back into our hearts and minds and we will need to work on purging them out regularly! Bear with each other and forgive each other, as we are never sure how close to a “refrigerator purge” each one of us is at any given time!