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“Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”
— Luke 5:14
It is amazing to me how much ‘stuff’ can be accumulated in a relatively small period of time. My husband and I have been married for fifteen and a half years. During that time, we have on moved four different occasions. Each time, we box up our things, bring them to the new home, and then begin to unpack. I try to donate or recycle unused things along the way. Our latest move was two years ago. We set up the house, trying to minimize the ‘stuff’, and then went about the business of living. Last weekend, we decided we needed to do some reshuffling of rooms in our house. Over the course of a week, we built new bookcases, a storage cabinet, and moved three rooms around. When all was said and done, the rooms were in beautiful condition, but the accumulated trash and unused possessions was an absolute mess. All told, we had over eleven trash bags full of things to give away, reuse, or throw away. And that was within two years!
Now, before there is too much grumbling, let me assure you that some of those things were from high school and I finally reached a point where they no longer needed to be stored. Some of them (a large majority) were the possessions our daughter has collected or made. Others were things that were bought, repurposed, or collected over the two years. But eleven bags seemed like a huge amount to me.
As I stood looking at that huge pile, it made me think of our own lives. We move from one phase to another – dedicating our lives to Christ and making the decision to live as a Christian. Then, we get on with the business of living. Somewhere along the way, we pick up ‘stuff’ we do not need. It could be a friend or a habit, a thought, or a choice. Whatever it is, we must make time to purge it from our lives. If not, years will pass and it may become a permanent fixture.
That is the beauty of time spent with God. He helps us clean the ‘stuff’ from our lives on a regular basis if we will only let Him.
