03/29/2023
Stuff, stuff, and more stuff. That’s my observation after moving this past week. Laura even said, “How is this possible? How have we accumulated so much stuff?” Sometimes it simply takes a move to get one moving and rid oneself of unneeded, unnecessary, and unwelcomed … stuff.
Hmm. I wonder how much unhealthy spiritual and emotional “stuff” I have accumulated through the years? How many closets are full of unneeded, unnecessary, and unwelcomed … stuff?
As I take a brief inventory of my personal baggage, I realize there are many habits, memories, and feelings of shame that still weigh me down and keep me slogging through the spiritual sludge of life.
It simply takes a move to get one moving.
But how? How do we rid ourselves of the internal accumulation of spiritual clutter? We move to get moving. We decide today, right now, that enough is enough. Here are four helpful steps in de-cluttering our spiritual closets:
1. Stop the madness. Stop accumulating. Whatever the habit, hurt, or hang-up you have, decide today, through prayer and reliance upon the power of the Holy Spirit, that you’re not going to keep stuffing more unhealth into your already over-stuffed spiritual closet. The Apostle Paul says it quite clearly: “Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning” (1 Cor. 15:34a, NIV).
2. Work on one closet at a time. I can easily get overwhelmed if I try to clean out our basement storage while I’m also concentrating on our attic while I also feel the need to declutter my bedroom closet. When I get overwhelmed, I get overworked, and I quickly burn-out and give up altogether. I come back to the Spanish phrase I recently learned, “Poco a poco.” Little by little. Peter writes about this process by addition, one step at a time: “Add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love” (2 Peter 1:5-7, NIV).
3. Increase the good while you let go of the bad. Jesus tells the story of a man who was healed of an impure spirit, but the spirit returned with seven other evil spirits, because it found the man’s life “swept clean and put in order” but “unoccupied” (Mark 12:43-45). It’s good to clean our spiritual house and declutter, but we do so in order to increase the good, not to remain spiritually empty.
4. Get some movers to help. Laura and I could not have made our recent move without the help of others. Our Rooted group came alongside us as did a number of other men and women in our church. I can’t imagine where we would be now if it had not been for the help and support of others. There is one thing you have to do on your own: decide. But once the decision is made that you are going to move to get moving, allow the church to be the church and demonstrate love in action. In the New Testament, we are admonished twelve times to “love one another,” and if we do, it will not only be in word or speech but in action and in truth (1 John 3:18).
It's time to move to get moving, and I pray you will make the decision to begin today.
