Spring is the season of detoxing, purging, organizing, fresh starts, and new regimens—dejunking our lives and making great efforts to clean out all the toxins in our bodies and our houses. Ahhh, the freedom that comes from throwing out those lonely socks that have lost their partners. They are never coming back, so just face the sad truth; it’s time to move on.

Recently, I woke to six inches of fresh snow that made the whole world new, covering piles of dog business and poorly laid shovels.

The snow and ice had me running on my treadmill indoors. After two months of neglect, I was ready to whip my body back into shape. I’d spent so much time meditating on matters of the heart, heavy with the brokenness all around me and in me.

The most important detox decluttering—discipline we can make efforts toward—has to be the detox of the heart.

‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV).

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23, NIV) 

Circumcise my heart, Lord, that is my prayer.

So much can clutter my thinking; my compass can so easily be thrown off by not getting time alone with Jesus. Such an easy discipline that can be done anywhere and changes everything.

As I ran, listening to the Bible app through my earbuds, I was reminded of how my small efforts can be the key to reset my heart—and how they can result in such a huge return. Tears from his tangible grace, love, and hope flowed from my eyes, feeding my hungry heart, making it easier to see—not just the visible, but the things unseen. These are the things that come only from time spent with him. He declutters my heart as he cuts through the layers of depravity that build up.

Oh, snow, cover me.

“Oh, Hi, Holy Spirit!” You are always waiting.

I just have to seek you first. First for my health, finances, life decisions, kids, and relationships. First for all my burdens, even the ones I don’t want to face.

I may think that I’m seeking him in selfishness, and then he makes me know—and feel—that he delights in me, in being with me, in spending time with me.

Oh, what love! What wondrous love!

When I walk outside, I am reminded, “My blood washes white as snow” (Psalm 51:7 NKJV), and it’s still falling in big, fluffy snowflakes like the truth that continues to clean the toxins from my heart, righting me.

“My sin had left a crimson stain, and He washed it white as snow.”

I hang on to the truth that, “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8 NLT).

And so I choose the better thing, to sit at his feet when laundry needs folding, and dog poop waits to be shoveled, and even when my running shoes call me. I choose to connect with Jesus and let him detox my heart.

Guest contributor Jenn Broberg not only writes but also pastors along with her husband Mark in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, at NORTHIRON, a multi-campus church in Ishpeming, while enjoying life with their kids. She writes from what she knows of Jesus and her adventures of following him around the world and invites you to the table of grace as she vulnerably shares her life with you.

You can follow Jenn on instagram@ jenbroberg and/or Facbook @ https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.broberg.1