It’s the new year and just like clockwork the “clean out and organize my home” bug is going around. There are commercials on TV pushing storage containers and the mailbox is full of flyers promoting the same. It will happen again in the spring but on a larger scale. The battle never ends.
Homes often fill up over the years. Add kids and it is a guarantee. What starts out as plenty of space turns into filled closets and overcrowded rooms. “Things” we don’t need today, might need one day, or can’t let go of pile up.
Have you ever picked a room in your home and cleaned it out thoroughly? I don’t mean “kinda”, I mean top to bottom. Clutter gone, remaining items organized. Tell me you didn’t visit that room often to soak up the peace that “space” now offers. It just feels good.
We’ll stop on occasion to de-clutter what has accumulated within our homes, but do we ever take inventory of what has accumulated within us?
Several years ago, the amount of “stuff” in our home finally just became too much. Where did this all come from?! More importantly, why do we have so many things that we simply do not need and add no value to our life?
The occasional skirmish to reclaim a closet or perhaps a room escalated into a small-scale war to reclaim our entire home, but something else happened. I realized that not only was our home full of a litany of un-needed things…. So was I.
An honest look around had told me to reduce the un-needed things in our home for the good of my family. My soul began to tell me to reduce the un-needed things inside of me for the good of Shane.
That last part was new to me but that is what happens when you let God into your life. Things change, you change, awareness grows.
Just as my home had filled up over the years, I had filled up as well. Sure, there were plenty of good traits and memories I was carrying around inside of me, but when I let God into my life several years ago my eyes were slowly opened to the full inventory.
I began to see the un-needed things, the baggage that I was carrying, as well as how damaging it was to my life, the people around me and most importantly, God’s ability to work in and through my life. What was on the list?
There were past failures, a few grudges, anger, pride, envy, selfish desires, un-forgiveness, bitterness, feelings of inadequacy, fear of a litany of things, dis-obedience, lack of appreciation, guilt of the consequences some of these things had produced. I could keep going. Talk about a heavy load when you finally throw it on the scale.
In all honesty it wasn’t that I ever set out to keep any of the things on that list, I just didn’t know how to get rid of them. So, they were stored inside of me, just like the un-needed things that were stored in my home. And therein lies the problem…. We store things.
We store things because we are human, and we store things because the world tells us we should not let some things go, but God stores nothing. He just gets rid of it.
Got Soul Clutter? Start right here…. let God into your life. That’s it. Just let God in and watch what happens in you and around you. Don’t just test the waters I mean, let… Him…. IN!
Seek Him in your life daily, live expectantly in His promises and literally watch what happens to your clutter. The cleaning up and cleaning out that is, or has been, beyond your capacity He can handle. Trust me on that one.
We can’t live, work or operate efficiently in a cluttered space and God can’t live, work or operate efficiently in a cluttered soul. That’s just how it works.
Get in the boat. Do your part.
From Nose to Toes.
Shane / #16
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