'SPRING CLEANING' SHOULD ALSO EXTEND TO THE 'DUST' THAT ACCUMULATES IN OUR SOULS

Did you ever stop to contemplate dust?

Sounds like an odd question and yet many are the times we don't consider what is all around us.

Often we don't see what is everywhere, what falls in the crannies, what hides and accumulates, what removes the luster of life.

The encyclopedia will tell you dust is many things: the pulverization and wafting through the air of soil, of textile fibers, of pollen, of minerals, of hair, of plant detritus, of paper residues, even of dead human skin cells. We encounter dust during spring cleaning.

There is also, for sure, spiritual grit when we allow darkness and particles of imperfection into or onto our souls, where it dims light.

Spiritual dust comes from bad habits. It comes when we neglect prayer ("dusting"). It comes when we forget Confession ("deep cleaning"). It comes when we avoid deliverance (deeper cleaning -- repainting). It comes -- accumulates -- when we keep the "window" open to wrong company, addiction, gluttony, television, radio, the internet, books, magazines, and other means. Remember to clean the air ducts and change the "filter."

It's always harder to dust after long neglect than as a matter of routine. Keeping dust out means being both a cleaner and a gatekeeper, which brings us to those "access points." Access points are frequently bad habits or past sins or brushes with darkness (perhaps even deceptive apparitions or occult involvement, however minor) that we have not purged. Access points are when we maintain titillating memories of past transgressions. It's when we still have "soul ties" to people in our past with whom we should no longer harbor memories. Access points are relationships with folks who have spiritual grit around them, a grit that can transfer. Access points are areas in our lives where there is still pride, materialism, lust, anger, unforgiveness, envy, grudges, impatience, or anything else that contravenes what Christ taught on the Mount.

Have you ever prayed to the Holy Spirit to reveal your access points? He will. In time, they'll become obvious -- sometimes instantly. Like dust mites, demons can attach to particles of spiritual dust, infiltrating slowly but surely and in a way that is all around us but hardly seen. Wash it away with diligence, discipline, and His Blood, which means prayer from the heart at Consecration.

[resources: A Life of Blessings] 

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