Is It Time to Change the Water Filter?

This summer I wrote a post about my experience with weeding out the gardens of my heart.

I described how I felt like I had just picked all the weeds and yet—without tending to my flower bed—the new ones had sprung up, catching me unawares.

Recently, God used a different picture to remind me of that same truth—the one that says I have to keep a daily watch on my heart connection.

We have a Brita water filter that connects to our faucet. We’re supposed to change the filter every three months, but usually, we forget.

We don’t notice it at first, that the water is slower to come out, that filling a glass or the coffee pot takes longer than it used to.

It’s a slow process, the inner workings of the filter sneakily getting built up and blocked by the city’s hard water.

And then, eventually, one of us asks, “Is it time to change the filter? Seems like it’s been a while.”

So we do.

Every time, we are amazed at how the water rushes out like a river breaking the dam, and in seconds, our glasses overflow.

We’ve become so used to the slow fill that we are surprised (seriously, every time) by the renewed flow.

When we changed our filter recently, I felt like the Lord reminded me that my spirit is like that.

I need the Holy Spirit to continually fill me, to give me His grace and power and strength.

But if I’m not consciously checking the connection, if I let it go a little longer, and a little more, and a little more, it’s easy to get bogged down by the circumstances and the stress and all the feels, like “I’m overwhelmed” or “I can’t do this.”

If I choose, however, to reconnect, to change the filter and let the Holy Spirit fill me again—refresh and renew—then I find the source of power and grace and strength once more.

Friends, if your source of water feels slow right now, maybe it’s time for a renewed flow. Let the Holy Spirit empower you to do His work this week!