The Barnacles Need to Be Removed…

A barnacle is a marine shellfish that lives attached to rocks, ship bottoms, and even other larger fish such as whales.  Barnacles are not only unattractive, but they can slow a ship down causing it to burn more fuel.  In order to remove them from the bottom of a ship, the ship must be dry-docked.  Once they are removed, the bottom of the ship must be re-treated with paint that makes the ship less susceptible to the barnacles.

A dry-dock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, and repair of ships, boats, and other watercraft. Some dry docks are designed mainly for ship construction, whereas others are intended for repairs and maintenance. The latter types of dry docks may be used for cleaning a ship's hull (such as removing barnacles and rust), repainting, or repairing battle damage.

In a spiritual sense, sometimes we have “barnacles” that attach themselves to our lives.  These barnacles come in the form of depression, anger, pride, distress, unfruitful attitudes, etc.  They will attach themselves and cause us to become unattractive spiritually.  We will become less effective as a Christian.   We will begin to let things slip here or there and eventually become so weighted down we can not move forward in God.  Then we need to be dry-docked.  We need to get away from distractions and allow the Spirit of God flood over us and remove the barnacles…a.k.a Prayer .  He will then “re-treat” our lives and make us less susceptible to the barnacles that try to attach themselves to our lives.

I once read that prayer doesn’t change things…it changes people.  Prayer can change us: giving us the strength, restoration, healing and preservation that we need from day to day.  There is power in prayer to remove the barnacles from our lives!  What a GREAT & MIGHTY God He is!!!!