What's Your Filter Made Of?

11-14-25

This morning I woke up and started journaling, not sure where it would go today. 2 chapters into my continuation in Ezekiel (a book I know is important for me personally, but often didn't get through in my reading plans), trying to glean things I hadn’t seen before. I stopped to pray that I’m not just doing this mindlessly, checking off the boxes of, “read a couple chapters, check!”. A couple verses after I said that prayer, I got to verse 17 and read, “All hands will hang limp and all knees will be weak as water.” along with cross-references to three other places in the Bible where this is spoken over the wayward children of Israel. What popped into my mind was not a declaration of weakness, but an admonition by God to intentionally do the opposite.

In both Isaiah 35:3 and in Hebrews 12:12, God calls us to “Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees” and the reference in Hebrews adds in verse 13, “and make straight paths for your feet so what is lame may not be dislocated, but healed.” (!) When I went to type that into my laptop journal, I typed “cross-reference” for the section that was written in the text, But when I went back to review what I’d written, it didn’t say “cross-reference”. It said “dross-reference”! Talk about diametrically opposed wording – just by changing one letter! It doesn’t take much to “poison the water” so to speak and turn what was meant to be life-giving to a detrimental perspective that shifts us away from God and His work in us and through us. It becomes a drain on our spiritual vitality and fervor! Details matter! Perspective matters! That’s why God said in Proverbs 4:23: “Guard your heart with all vigilance/diligence, for out of it springs/flows the issues/well-spring of life.”

How easily do we “poison the well” of our hearts? How quickly can we move from “cross-referencing” on what Jesus has done for us, with “dross-referencing”, pulling in complaints, arguing, division, anger, fear… and all those other things that contaminates our life experience and drags our attention toward discontentment, disappointment, discouragement and ALL the other things God told us to discard to embrace His love. We need to ditch the “dis” dross, and embrace the cross and our self-sacrificial Savior who gives us His contentment, His appointment, His courage, knowing we are dearly loved, provided for, and encouraged so we can live lives of purpose and Divine appointment!

What’s your filter made of? Dross? Or the Cross of Christ? Because your filters matter. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18) If you’re not seeing the results you want, the results the Bible promises to God’s sons and daughters, it might be time for a “filter change”!