By Patty LaRoche
Packing to move afforded Dave and me the perfect opportunity to clear out the clutter. If I were to grade us on achieving that goal, we would deserve a D. Even the accordion I had purchased at a garage sale 15 years ago, the one with the three stuck pegs, the missing pearl button and the tattered leather straps seemed too valuable to get rid of it. Why? It’s not like I was being recruited to join a polka band. Preserved in the back of a basement closet, this instrument now either needed to go, or I needed to take accordion lessons. Adios, accordion.
This instrument was the least of my “unnecessaries.” I spent days laboring over old speeches, written before computers but still filled with nuggets of scriptural advice. Would I find the time to consolidate the meaningful messages on my HP? Probably not. I burned out our shredder on old lesson plans, archaic and replicatable with AI’s help, along with warranties on items we no longer had. Dirty flower pots, houses to greenery I had managed to kill, were thrown away, as well as hardened Miracle Gro and rose bush fertilizer (for the bushes we had in our previous house). This all sounds noble, but at the end of our packing, we still filled three railroad cars with our possessions, and now, living in the basement of the house we are renovating, we see how few things we actually need. No doubt, there will be another decluttering when we unpack all of our “can’t live without” belongings. Still, it could be worse.
Years ago, I needed to drop something off at a student’s house. Nothing prepared me for the hoarding I saw as I entered her home. A small pathway, lined with who-knows-what led to the back of the house, and I left there, wondering how someone could live in those piles.
I picture my heart like that house. How much of God’s truth, peace and joy are hidden under mounds of distractions, worries and unnecessary baggage? Unconfessed sin, misplaced priorities or people-pleasing weigh me down, block my intimacy with God and destroy my peace. Hebrews 12:1 (NIV) is a delicate reminder of the need to rid myself of those problems: “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
Spiritual clutter slows us down and keeps us from running the race God has set before us. There is something invigorating that happens after we declutter a closet, a work place or a kitchen drawer, but even more satisfying is when we clean out our spiritual, sacred space. In doing that, we make room for the Creator, and I cannot think of a better way to finish the race He has set before us.