Chuck it like an old newspaper

"assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." -Ephesians 4:21-24 

This week, one of my patients was a dear old woman whom I spent a lot of time with simply because she was lonely. When I first walked in that morning, the first thing she asked me to do for her was to bring the trashcan closer to her bed. In her weathered, yet quite feisty words..."some dummy put it all the way on the other side of the room where I can't reach, some brains they had." I proceeded to put that trashcan right next to her bed at just the right angle so that she could slide the trash off the bed and into the can with ease. As I continued about my business with her, I wondered if she even had trash to put into the can.

We got cleaned up and I was straightening up her room for her when she very adamantly requested I toss the day-old newspaper. Knowing that reading the paper was just about the only available activity for her and its helpful in orienting confused patients, I asked to make sure that she didn't want it for later. "NO! I don't need that. Plus, I have enough problems of my own without reading about everyone else." When that day's paper came in later on at lunch time, before even taking it out of the bag, she wanted it in the trash.

I guess this is what we have to do with our old ways of life in the flesh, toss it like an old newspaper. When our old selves pop back up again, don't spend time to unwrap it and going exploring again into the depths of the past. Just like this woman needed to have the trashcan near her bedside in order to discard the paper, the truth is, if we are not walking alongside our Savior, we are completely incapable to shedding our former ways of life. Let's make getting rid of our old selves a first thing in the morning type priority and rejoice in the fact that Jesus has made himself available for us to be renewed!