Title
The Constant Clutter
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654

The Constant Clutter

Our homes and our lives can get cluttered by junk.  But how do you decide what needs to go and what should stay?

2014

We have the habit of holding a yard sale about once every year.  Not only is it a good way to make some side cash, but it also allows us to rid our home of some of the junk that has accumulated around us.  I am amazed every year at the amount of stuff that we have but don’t need!

We are right now in major declutter mode and true to form I look around at all of the random items piling up in my garage and wonder why we still have some of it.  I would love to blame my family for all of these items, but I was cleaning out a section of the garage and found tools I didn’t even remember having.  Then I came across a very nice air impact wrench.  The problem is – I don’t even have an air compressor to hook it up too!

Our homes can get filled up with so much stuff without our even trying!   I guess I should be thankful that our home has limited storage.  The blessing of that is it forces us to declutter every once in a while.  If I had a storage shed or an attic – the problem would only be multiplied I am sure.

2016

I thought about all of these things in our home.  They are not a problem.  They are not wicked.  They are just things that are no longer needed in our lives.  Some had a purpose once, but are no longer useful to us.  Others were just items we thought we needed but really didn’t.  My favorite of those items being what we bought from other people’s yard sales and never used once!

Our spiritual lives can get cluttered as well.  It is important that we take the time to declutter every once in a while.  To give ourselves the room we need to grow in the faith.  If we don’t, we can find ourselves drowning in the clutter of life.  The pile of stuff that can suffocate our growth in Him.  What kind of things am I thinking about?

  • I once prayed a little “poem” prayer before I went to sleep – now that would just be vain repetition.
  • I once enjoyed playing sports every night of the week – now that would be a hindrance to my service to Christ.
  • I once needed to play every new video game that hit the market – now I realize that is something that distracts me from my love for Christ.

Now, before you start screaming at me that none of those things I mentioned are sin – that is the point I am making.  These were things in my life that I now no longer need.  Or they simply have become clutter in my walk with Christ.  They are not sinful, it’s just junk that has now become a hindrance in my personal relationship with Christ.  They no longer help me walk with Christ, they just get in the way.

The wonderful thing is that “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.  Just because I choose to toss it out of my life does not mean that you need to do the same!  Sometimes the very thing that becomes a hindrance to me, say playing sports, can become exactly what someone else needs to grow in Christ. Like someone that joins a Christian sports league to gain the fellowship of other believers that they were lacking.

It is important for us to go through our lives and declutter.  To honestly look at all of the things we spend our time on and answer the question, “Does this help me in my relationship with Christ, or does this hinder it in some way?”  Far too often we make our choices by asking, “Does God specifically condemn this in the scripture?”  Then we assume that if God never said it was evil, then it must be okay.  My friend, that is not how we should choose what we allow into our lives.  We shouldn’t ask, “Is it condemned as evil?”  We should instead ask, “Is it good?”  What we spend our time on should always allow us the room to grow in the faith, if it doesn’t – it’s junk that needs to get tossed out.

good

Do you find yourself buried in the junk of life, distracted by so many things that you forget what is truly important?  What is cluttering your life right now?  What is the junk that is hindering you from drawing closer to Christ?  What are you going to do about it?  Let us know in the comments below what is happening in your heart.  Feel free to hit the contact us tab in our about us section to send me a personal note.  I would love to encourage you in this process.  I know how hard it can be to get rid of junk.

Sure, you can send this article to anybody you want. And, if you’re REAL awesome, you’ll even tell them where it came from!

8 thoughts on “The Constant Clutter”

  1. Thank you so much for this! I need to declutter my life, spiritually and physically. This past week we have been packing up our apartment and moving everything to a storage unit, so we can go on a year-long furlough. Just when we thought we were almost done packing, we opened the closets and found piles and piles of clothes. Wow, talk about clutter! I’ll have to get some tips from Joy, while we are in Florida, about having a yard sale. I have a feeling that our yard sale will look a lot like your picture from 2014!

    1. It is months since I wrote this, and we are still trying to declutter! We are finding stuff shoved into every corner of our home. We must be on constant guard to keep junk from growing in our lives. I am starting to think that junk has the ability you reproduce itself.

  2. Well said Mike!! You have been given a great gift to say some things through your posts that I have been trying to figure out how to express myself. I too have found my desires for “things” in my life waning. They may still be in my home for others to still enjoy, but for me personally they are no longer needed.

    1. Thank you for your kind words. It is awesome when we come to a point that we begin to lose the desire for some of the things this world has to offer. It does not mean that those things were evil necessarily, it’s just that we have found something so much better!

  3. Once again, Brother Case, a great piece! I just want to encourage you a little bit and let you know that I have been keeping up with reading every post. Not always right away, but I do read them! They always make me think, and I love the real life object lessons you give. Keep up the good work!

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