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I am a confessed goldfish murderer—more technically an involuntary fish slaughterer. Over the years, I’ve flushed my share of dead gold fish down the toilet. I assume that’s what you do with dead ones. Yet owning fish is a big deal these days. According to MSNBC, Americans own over 19 million goldfish, besides all the other species. This alone has made owning fish the most popular American hobby with nearly 1 of every 5 households doing the fish thing. I guess there is something educational, entertaining and therapeutic about watching fish swim back and forth, back and forth.

To understand where I’m going with this, you have to understand two things. First, you look at life as a fishbowl. Secondly, if life is a fishbowl, then you are a fish, swimming around relating to one other, feeding, and growing while the world watches your every move.

If you want to influence people around you, and if you want to grow deeper in your relationship with God, take a look at two essentials for living life in the fishbowl.

1. Clean your tank. Experts tell us that we must clean a fish tank at least twice a month. Cleaning the tank means changing the water, scrubbing the sides, and if you’re sophisticated, vacuuming the dirt and junk out. If you neglect to clean, you end up with murky water and fish that eventually become floaters—you know—they die, float to the surface, and then get flushed.

Our lives, like a fishbowl, need regular cleaning and maintenance. Maybe you are swimming through the murky waters of a bad habit or secret sin -- or the algae of materialism has contaminated you. Perhaps the impurities of anger or lust have clouded your vision -- or you’re choking on your selfishness. Has lying has tainted the way you live? What you and I need is a cleaning or we’ll eventually become relational floaters with each other and God. You must clean your tank.

One of the best examples from the Bible of a person who forgot to clean his tank was King David. He was known as a man after God’s own heart, yet he failed to maintain his personal tank. He allowed algae, lust, and pride to fill it. He should have been on the battlefield fighting as any good king would do, but he stayed home and allowed his mind and eyes to wander.

As my grandmother used to say: "The idle mind is the devil’s workshop." One evening, David saw Bathsheba bathing on the rooftop of her house, just down the street from the palace. He lusted after her. He committed adultery. Then, David had her husband killed and married Bathsheba to cover up the fact that she had gotten pregnant. For a year, David swam in the murky, cloudy waters of sin. He was drowning in his own waste—the waste of sin, adultery, pride, lust, murder, deceit and lying. He was well on his way to becoming an emotional/spiritual floater. And to make matters worse, he was choking on regret, guilt and shame that he couldn’t get rid of or undo on his own, either.

David was on his way to the top as a floater, hopelessly choking on his mistakes. We’re like David; we all have dirty fishbowls that need spiritual cleaning.

Almost a year later, the prophet Nathan confronted David, exposing all the impurities floating around in David’s fishbowl. Humble and broken, David responded with an aqua-type prayer. It’s found in Psalm 51:1-4. Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my shameful deeds--they haunt me day and night. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.

What was David asking? "God, here’s my tank. It’s a moral mess, and I can’t clean it myself. Will you clean me up, vacuum out the junk, and scrub the sides of my life?" David handed over his tank to God, and God did the cleaning. Friends, we can’t do the cleaning ourselves. Only God can. And until you admit you’re swimming around in your own sin and turn your tank over to God, you will never get clean on your own--no one, but God can clean up your sinful mess.

2. Install a filtering system to keep your life free clean and free from contaminants. I have never owned a fancy fish tank or aquarium, but I’m told that a filtering system plays a major role in keeping the water clean. It catches all the waste and bacteria. It purifies and aerates the water. If you don’t implement some kind of filtering system or never change the filter, you can expect floaters.

You can expect the same when you neglect your moral filtering system. Your life will become polluted again with sinful waste. Just because God cleaned David’s tank, that didn’t give David a license to dirty it up again by having another affair or murdering someone. The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 6:1-2, Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? Of course not! God has developed a moral filtering system or process to keep you morally clean. Otherwise, you’ll swim in murky, moral muck again.

Have you installed God’s Word as a filter in your life? Are you running your thoughts and actions through God’s truth filter? If not, you’ll produce murky, moral muck in your life.

Practice threshold thinking. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 10:5, We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Is that a filtering verse or what? You practice threshold, first-frame thinking where you evaluate every thought by running it through God’s filter of truth first. You must take your thoughts prisoner and surrender them to God’s truth.

Want to live successfully in the fish bowl of life? You must do two necessary things: Allow God to clean the tank and install God’s filtering system to keep your thoughts and actions clean.