My husband and I did some house cleaning last night after the kids were in bed. Not the usual kind of house cleaning though. The Lord had brought it to our attention that we had allowed some things into our home that were not honoring to Him.

I had been feeling uncomfortable about several things for a while now. One of them being our little corner neighbor girl, who our kids have made friends with. She is a bit older than our kids and as far as I can tell is not being raised in a Christian home. My children often go out to the corner of our back fence to visit with her. I have not been thrilled with the influence that she has been having on them. I was praying about it the other day and found myself asking God to, "Please protect my children from any unGodly influence." The answer that was shot right back at me was, "No, that is YOUR job." OUCH!

In the meantime, the Lord had been speaking to my hubby about his video game habits. Now these particular games are not necessarily evil. There are those who would probably have no problem with them in the least. However, we were not comfortable with the spiritual conotations contained in them. My hubby had been struggling with knowing that he needed to deal with this and his desire to continue to enjoy them. After all, sin is fun for a season! But the end result is ALWAYS death!!!

My hubby is not the only one who had a struggle with sin. I was having my own struggle. I share this because maybe it can be a help to some other woman out there who struggles with the thought life. My struggle centers around an old boyfriend who I was madly in love with, before I ever met my husband. In fact, I idolized him! It took my Godly Aunt to point this out to me. I have told my hubby about him and the struggles that I have had to get him out of my thoughts. The problem is that my past sin of idolizing this person opened up a foothold for the enemy to use against me. Even though I have confessed this sin and repented of it, both to my husband and most importantly to the Lord, this man keeps popping up in my dreams at night. Then in the morning when I wake up it is very difficult to purge those thoughts from my mind again. I hesitated to share this again with my husband fearing that he would be hurt by it or think that it means that I don't love him. That couldn't be further from the truth. I finally got up the nerve to share this with him last night and it turned out to be fine. I feel that if you struggle with this sort of sin, it is emparitive that you not only confess it to God but also confess it to your husband! I tried for years in our early marriage to hold this in, fearing to hurt my husband's feelings. It ate at me. It wasn't until I finally shared it with my husband that I was finally able to start getting some victory over this sin.
   
    I had been listening to tapes of my Pastor's wife teaching on the book of Ezekiel. She is a very gifted teacher. We were studying that one of the things that God had to really come down hard on the Israelites for, was their practice of sacrificing their own children to false gods (they literally had them burned to death!) and then, the very same day, going to worship the only true God in His sanctuary!!! This was brought to my mind Sunday morning while I was in worship! I was forced to ask myself, "What ugliness am I bringing into the sanctuary with me???" It was very humbling!!!

Another thing that the Lord had spoken to us about is what we have been allowing in through the TV. We had a while back gotten a Family Package through Dish TV. It has opened up all sorts of new viewing choices for my children and made it more difficult for us to keep a handle on what they are watching. As a result compromises have been made.

At one of our church's Christmas Services, Sunday morning, there were several people who got up and gave short testamonies of how Salvation through Jesus Christ has been the greatest gift they ever received. One of those people was a young woman who shared that she had been raised in a Christain home. She told how TV and other things had influenced her to sinful attitudes. What she said really impacted me!

Then a little later that day, my kids were watching "The Smurfs", one of the compromises we had made. I have not been comfortable with this show at all! However, when I saw the villan draw a circle of fire around himself and his captives and then start to say an incantation, I told my kids that it was to be turned off immediately!!! There are so many of these shows that are nothing more than pure evil disguised as innocence!

So, my hubby and I talked all these things over last night. We made some decisions to "pluck some eyes out," and "cut some hands off!" My hubby is going to discontinue the Dish TV. He also gathered up the "offensive" video games and the books that go with them. He was going to sell them but felt the Lord leading him to throw them out instead. So he took them to work to dispose of them in the dumpster there. We also spent time in prayer together confessing our sin of allowing this stuff in and asking the Lord's forgiveness. We asked God to continue to show us if there is anything else in our home and lives that is not honoring to Him.

We also asked for guidance concerning the kid's little corner friend. We are not at all sure how to handle this one. We talked about simply limiting the access our children have to her. But then we also talked about allowing her into our home so that we can monitor what happens between her and our children. Hopefully, we can also have a Godly influence on her as well. We are awaiting God's leading on this one.

In the meantime, please pray for us! The enemy is not at all happy with these developments! I am certain that we are going to be under attack as a result! My hubby and I are in complete agreement that we want nothing to be ashamed of before God when we some day meet Him face to face! We also want to be sure that we are being the example that we need to be to our children. We so desire for them to grow up in God's love and in service to Him!