We were newly engaged and beginning to list out the things we would need to register for or buy for our new life together.
“We need dishes, cups, towels, a bathroom trash can…”
“Hey. We don’t need a bathroom trashcan. I have one we can use.”
As my beloved holds up the most God awful trash can I have ever seen.
Picture this:
A metal trash can covered in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle scenes. Rusty and dinged up. It literally was warped like a car had run over it and Brent had tried to straighten it back out.
This was his offering.
Why buy a new one? Why get rid of that one?
He couldn’t comprehend.
Neither could I.
Jesus take the wheel.
This two becoming one thing was gonna get reallllll interesting.
Fast forward a smooth 9 years to this week, Brent and I just finished packing our ENTIRE house in preparation for a move.
We have spent the last week going through our home and packing everything into boxes, loading them down three flights of stairs and up another flight of stairs into our storage unit.
Things got real sloppy during the move…at one point I was throwing things over the balcony into the yard…yes people… I did that… I confess. It was WAY more efficient than lugging it down the stairs. I’m sure the neighbors were super impressed. (I have always wanted to do that crazy scene in a move where the couple is breaking up and she is dumping his stuff in the yard…but without the anger and tears and breakup b/c I love my man…well I got my wish!)
Packing is the most annoying task on the face of the earth.
It is quite amazing how much junk 3 people can acquire.
The thing about packing is that packing the items we actually use or need usually doesn’t take too long. But then you’re left with all the pointless stuff, the items that are STILL in boxes from your last move, or the items you haven’t laid eyes on or needed since the last time you got them out of the moving box. You know the stuff you own that you are unsure of why you even have it?
Those are the items that get shoved back into another box. We break our backs to take them to the moving truck and lug them up another flight of stairs into our new place, only to unpack them again and never touch them or stack them (still in the box) in the attic.
Do we really need the beat up metal trash can, or three cheese plates, or 6 sets of unmatched sheets or boxes of napkin rings?? (those are some of my useless items)
This move I was going through my pile of old purses checking all the pockets. I mean— a TREASURE TROVE of important items: movie tickets, half eaten granola bars and that set of keys you thought you would NEVER find.
I picked a bag up that felt heavy in the front pocket.
I unzipped the pocket and found THE JACKPOT!!!! I found $3,000.00 worth of Walmart gift cards that someone had given our ministry and I had for ONE SOLID YEAR thought that I had lost into the great unknown. I had marked it as one of my biggest failures in ministry….just poof…$3,000.00 was gone and I couldn’t find it ANYWHERE.
I jumped up and down and screamed and there were tears and all the feels when I found those Walmart cards. It was a moment of the right being made wrong. Redemption of a mistake! I had been cleared of the charges of losing those cards!!!
You find things that you thought you lost when you move. Super valuable things.
Our hearts and minds are a bit like a house. Full of memories, thoughts, beliefs and junk that we have placed there or someone else has placed there for us…like that horrid ceramic egg your grandma got ya…just sitting on a shelf collecting dust.
There are past hurts, struggles, addictions and things we are too ashamed to face shoved into the attics of our lives. They are stacked ceiling high.
And do you know what we do? We move all of this junk around, over and over again. We take loads of boxes packed with useless things from one season to the next.
We carry them down three flights of stairs and into the moving van as we step into new roles and opportunities, new relationships and new callings.
The fear we can’t escape. The sin that still crouches at our door.
The depression we keep tripping on that lies across the threshold of our minds.
It’s all there.
Our pride is like fine china. Not useful at all yet highly protected, wrapped in bubble wrap and moved right into the next part of our lives, to be unloaded and only used when important people are around. (no offense to all you china users)
We are hoarders in our hearts. Not wanting to wade through the piles of things that are easier to shove under a bed than bring them out into the light.
But this is not what God wants for our lives. He wants us to be clean, emptied out; having plenty of space for the gifts and treasures HE wants to give us. He wants us to put all those boxes of struggle and sin on the curb…or better yet in the dumpster.
God himself put it this way:
“I’ll live in them, move into them;
I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people.
So leave the corruption and compromise;
leave it for good,” says God.
“Don’t link up with those who will pollute you.
I want you all for myself.
I’ll be a Father to you;
you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”
The Word of the Master, God.
With promises like this to pull us on, dear friends,
let’s make a clean break with
everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without.
Let’s make our entire lives fit and holy temples for the worship of God.”
2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1
We have a God who wants to move into our hearts. And His desire is that our hearts not be polluted and cluttered.
The closer we are to our Father, the more He gives us.
He wants to give us boxes and boxes of things with bright red ribbons on them, things that give us life and hope, things that equip us for our marriage, parenting, our jobs, our callings. He wants to fill the rooms of our hearts and minds with His presence and decorate our lives with things that give Him glory.
He can’t do that if we’re full. If there’s no room in our hearts for Him.
The beauty of cleaning out our hearts and lives is, as we do, as we make room for God to move and give us truth to replace all that junk, we not only free up space, but we hit the jackpot when we find in the midst of our unnecessary stuff things we thought we had lost. We find joy we thought was gone, passion for our callings that were covered up in busyness and apathy, we find whispers of our value and worth and reminders of who we truly are that all got lost in the shuffle.
It’s time for us to stand on the balcony and have a GREAT BIG BREAK UP SCENE with the devil and all the junk in our lives. Throw it all out into the yard for everyone to see, snot nose cry and scream and have all the feels and emotions. Get it all out. Throw it all away.
Make a clean break.
Don’t break your back carrying things up and down stairs that aren’t useful or necessary…or that aren’t reflections of your Father and what He desires for you.
You don’t have to do that anymore….actually you never had to in the first place.
There is freedom in Christ. Real freedom. The kind that takes all our old junk to the landfill to never be seen again…the old has GONE the new has COME.
What are you going to make a clean break with in your own life? What are you going to put on the curb to be trashed and never seen again? How are you going to allow God to free you up from the truckloads of your past that you’re still clinging to?
Lord, search our hearts, our closets and the attics of our minds.
Pull out the stuff from under our beds that is hindering us from becoming who you have called us to be.
May we give no more real estate to our enemy. May he not be welcome in the home of our hearts
Amen.
READ MORE ABOUT IT:
2 Corinthians 5:17
Hebrews 10:22
Matthew 11:28
Philippians 4:8
