More Toxic Items for the Trash Heap

When you’re a Christian, you’re supposed to have testimony. God is supposed to do supernatural things for you and around you all the time. If that’s what’s happening to you, be of good cheer, because it means your life has the potential to get much, much better. Once you get hooked up to the power source, good things will happen.

I had an interesting experience night before last.

I’ve been cleaning up my home, getting rid of objects which give evil spirits power. This is an extremely important thing to do. Praying for help with your problems while living in a house full of demon doors is like bailing out a boat without plugging the giant hole in the hull.

If you don’t cleanse your house, expect problems, and don’t be surprised if God refuses to help you with them. That’s the bottom line.

Recently, I threw out a bunch of literature I considered problematic. I threw out works by Plato and Homer, as well as some other Greek idolaters and/or sexual degenerates. Night before last, I realized I had two items which might be just as bad.

A couple of years ago, before my dad became so demented he could not drive, I got him a gift certificate from Barnes & Noble. I don’t recall the occasion. Maybe Father’s Day. He complained that he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to read, but he decided to drive to the store anyway. He came home with some neat bookends: heavy plaster casts of Homer and Socrates. He liked them a lot.

The bookends came with us to Ocala. I put them in my storage room along with a lot of other things I didn’t know what to do with.

Here is what occurred to me: if Homer’s pantheist works aren’t fit to be in a Christian house, and Plato’s praises of homosexual predation shouldn’t be here, why should I keep images of Homer and Socrates?

It bothered me to think of throwing the bookends out. I pitied my dad. He was once a big, strong, forceful man with a high IQ and power over other people, but in his last years, he was confused, and he needed help. He seemed to shrink. He used to walk around with his pants rolled up, just as the poem says.

I remember when he showed the bookends to me. He was very pleased with what he had done, and he seemed to want me to approve and share in his pleasure.

My dad doesn’t deserve pity. He is an immortal being with a perfect mind and eternal youth. He is invulnerable. He lives in a realm of joy and love. I forget this, and I feel sorry for him. I felt like throwing the bookends out would be like throwing my dad out and forgetting him.

I decided to get rid of them anyway. I didn’t hesitate for a minute. God has a problem with hellenism, and that means taking part in it, even in small ways, creates serious, annoying problems for me. It creates obstacles for God. That’s the last thing I want to do. I want the channel to be wide open.

I can’t take garbage to the dump on Thursdays, so I got out of bed and put the bookends in the garage with things I intended to take later. I have found that God will honor this just as well as taking things to the dump or destroying them.

I went to sleep, and hours later, I woke up suddenly. I heard a male voice yell, “BOH!”, as if someone had been kicked very suddenly and very hard from behind. I don’t know if “boh” means anything. It means “where” in Hebrew, but that may not have any significance. It may just have been an exclamation of surprise or pain.

Anyway, right after this happened, I felt a very powerful change.

I have a problem with my nose clogging up at night. It’s nowhere near as bad as it once was, but it happens. Right after I heard the sound, I realized my head was wide open. Not only was I not congested; I felt completely open and empty, as though someone had gone in with a tool and enlarged the passages in my head.

It was so extreme, it made a great impression on me.

It’s as if the bookends had been giving power to a spirit that wanted to take away my air.

I’ve had a little congestion since then, so I can’t say I was permanently delivered, but it was very, very odd.

Today the bookends go to the dump. My dad won’t care. They’re not his, and he doesn’t care about them in heaven. If he could come back, he would throw them out, himself.

I don’t want to suffer needlessly all my life and then get to heaven and find there were painful problems that dogged me to the end when I could have gotten victory simply by throwing unimportant things out.

My ideas must sound crazy to lukewarm Christians. Most Christians have convinced themselves of some very stupid notions. They think Satan and evil spirits aren’t real and shouldn’t be discussed, which is remarkable, since Jesus is a spirit, and he cast out evil spirits here on earth. They think they can melt into the world’s culture and still please God. They see nothing wrong with exposing themselves to poisonous entertainment created by people who hate Christianity. They use drugs and fornicate and expect God to give them every blessing in the Bible.

The earth is a battleground, we are at war, and we live behind enemy lines. We’re surrounded. It’s very serious. A lax attitude brings greatly diminished results, and it can result in damnation, even if you think you’re a Christian and you’ve been baptized.

We sleep with our eyes open, every day, like Samson on the lap of Delilah. We cuddle up to our enemies and expect them and God to treat us well.

God is throwing many, many people into hell every day, and we act like everything is fine. Most people go to hell, and things are not fine.

I keep asking God what else I should get rid of. I look forward to more protection and help, as well as a closer relationship with him. I don’t care about the things I lose. They’re snares and stumbling blocks. I want the pearl of great price.

I find I don’t miss the things I discard. For example, I don’t miss my blues or jazz CD’s at all. I am very slightly unhappy about throwing out a collection that took so long and cost so much to put together, but it’s not a big deal. I wasn’t listening to the disks anyway, so what have I lost?

Getting rid of things can be very empowering. This week I took the tractor and ripped out a bunch of shrubs beside my house. They were old and tough and hard to deal with. I took ownership instead of continuing to defer to former owners who have zero authority here. I’ve installed smaller shrubs that will look better and be much easier to care for. I should have done it sooner. This is my house. It’s not their house. It’s not my dad’s house. I own 100% of it.

I’m strongly inclined to get rid of my mother’s crystal. She liked Waterford. As a heterosexual man, I don’t see much appeal in expensive crystal, and even if I did, Waterford is heavy and lacking in elegance. I feel like selling every piece, just so I won’t have to carry or wash it again.

I want to get rid of my mother’s china. She had two sets. My sister got the newer, nicer set, and I got the old set. It’s very tasteful, but when am I going to use china? She had two sets of silverware, and I got the Fifties-looking set that looks dated and a little tacky. I think it clashes with the china. I’d like to get rid of the silverware, too. I don’t like silver flatware. Polishing it is a nightmare.

My mother was a wonderful lady, but her taste was not everything it could have been. She grew up in Eastern Kentucky, and she never got completely past it. There were a lot of hits, but there were also a lot of misses.

I have a huge fruitwood china cabinet. It’s about 6 feet long, and it’s extremely heavy. I do not like it. It’s in a room–my unused dining room–where I should really put some tools and a bench. I’m contemplating putting it in a consignment store.

My grandmother had a lot of nice stuff, because she and my grandfather never divorced, and my grandfather, who was very well off, let her spend money on her house. My dad was extremely cheap with my mother. She bought things from estates and outlets, and it showed. Their marital problems led to losses. The only items of any quality that remain are the crystal, the china, some silver, a filthy Chippendale chair, and the china cabinet. It’s not worth curating, to put it mildly.

Dysfunctional families start over, again and again. They don’t build. Often, the things they pass on are not worth keeping. It’s better to dump this depressing stuff and start from scratch.

I don’t think spirits have attached themselves to my mother’s paltry collection of feminine treasures, but bad memories have. Also, I really believe I’m going to be living in Tennessee before very long, and I can’t stand the thought of paying movers to haul junk I don’t want.

You probably have toxic objects in your home. There are plenty of Christians out there who have testified to the importance of getting rid of them. I hope you’ll consider it. It’s not our imagination. The things you possess can ruin your life.